NURS FPX 6616 Assessment 2 Summary Report on Rural Health Care And Affordable Solutions

NURS FPX 6616 Assessment 2 Summary Report on Rural Health Care And Affordable Solutions

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Capella University

NURS-FPX 6616 Ethical and Legal Considerations in Care Coordination

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Summary Report on Rural Health Care and Affordable Solutions

This assessment entails a summary report on improving healthcare for a population with type 2 diabetes in Kent County, Texas. Moreover, the paper will address the need for cultural competency. The team must integrate cultural competency to tackle the cultural sensitivity issues of this population. Lastly, the report will shed light on legal issues and ethical care maintenance in providing care treatments with the help of technological systems.

Specific Population Needs and Community

Kent County of Texas provides a landscape to 749 residents, 81.8% of whom are white and 16.3% Hispanic. This rural population has been experiencing specific health needs, including HIV prevalence, diabetes, and obesity. About 9.2% of the population is suffering from diabetes, 17% of the population indulges in excessive alcohol consumption, 21% of the population has a sedentary lifestyle, and 13% of people smoke in Kent County (Texas Primary Care Consortium, n.d.). Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic healthcare issue that rural populations are unable to manage effectively due to several factors. These factors include limited access to healthcare, socioeconomic challenges, reduced health literacy, and culture and lifestyle. factors.

This results in inadequate diabetes management among rural natives, leading to higher rates of diabetes-associated complications and mortalities (Dugani et al., 2020). Considering these factors, as a care coordination consultant in Kent County, it is imperative to look deeper into these problems and provide possible solutions to promote diabetes management. Moreover, it is vital to consider cultural sensitivity and diversity issues, which will require cultural competency training to understand better the diverse backgrounds of the population and their values and beliefs. This will help create diabetes care plans tailored to their beliefs, health needs, and preferences.

Current Available Interprofessional Team Providers and Resources

Kent County Rural Health Clinic is a healthcare clinic based in Kent County that provides multiple services, such as acute illness treatment, telehealth consultations, and chronic care to manage chronic health disorders. This health clinic works efficiently with the available interprofessional team providers, including primary care physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. These providers work together to deliver comprehensive patient care by using available resources such as telehealth technologies. The telehealth platforms allow the rural population to seek remote consultations and provide timely access to specialty care and expertise, including diabetes management (Appuswamy & Desimone, 2020).

Moreover, the telehealth partners in Kent County can assist interprofessional providers at the clinic by providing access to educational resources and virtual learning opportunities for diabetics of Kent County. Additionally, the nurses can conduct remote monitoring for diabetes management after thoroughly educating the patients on diabetes self-management. Furthermore, the urban healthcare systems and their relevant stakeholders can provide telehealth facilities to enable collaboration between rural and urban interprofessional team providers to discuss strategies that can promote diabetes management and prevent diabetes-associated complications (Sutherland et al., 2020).

Areas of Cultural Competency to be Addressed in Team

Identifying areas of cultural competency that interprofessional teams must address while providing diabetes care to rural patients is imperative. In rural communities, there are high chances of linguistic diversity and individuals with limited English proficiency. Therefore, interprofessional team providers must employ effective communication strategies such as using interpreters and translators. These strategies will ensure patients understand the diabetes care treatment and educational sessions to enhance their knowledge and promote diabetes self-management (Ibrahim et al., 2020). Additionally, healthcare professionals must respect and acknowledge the community’s cultural beliefs while providing culturally competent diabetes care.

NURS FPX 6616 Assessment 2 Summary Report on Rural Health Care And Affordable Solutions

Cultural beliefs and health practices impact illness perceptions, treatment preferences, and healthcare-seeking behaviors. Applying culturally competent care in diabetes management for Kent County will impact care coordination as cultural competence promotes shared decision-making processes respecting patients’ values and cultural backgrounds. By incorporating cultural perspectives in care plans for diabetes, interprofessional teams can foster a rapport for trust and collaboration with patients. Moreover, culturally competent care results in tailored diabetes management plans, which results in better adherence to treatment plans and positive health outcomes (Ibrahim et al., 2020).

Technology-Based Outreach Strategies

Mobile Health (mHealth) applications that offer personalized diabetes self-management tools, including medication reminders, glucose tracking, meal planning, and educational resources, can be implemented. Furthermore, the contribution of community health workers or local pharmacies can assist patients in downloading and using these applications and guiding them on how to interpret data (Lauffenburger et al., 2021). Another strategy involves implementing text messaging and automated reminder systems to deliver customized health messages, appointment reminders, and medication adherence in diabetics of the rural population. Local community clinics or health departments can help patients enroll in text messaging programs, ensure messages are culturally appropriate, and provide additional support and reinforcement (Lauffenburger et al., 2021).

Legal Issues with Telehealth

The legal issues persist with telehealth utilization for treating all healthcare conditions like diabetes. The most significant legal issues are unauthorized access, data breaches, and disclosure due to cybercrimes. For this purpose, telehealth platforms must comply with HIPAA and state telehealth privacy protocols to safeguard patient health data (Galetsi et al., 2022). Additionally, the healthcare providers using telehealth services must obtain licenses in each state where their patients are located.

These laws vary from state to state, and interprofessional team members must practice regulations to avoid practicing medicine without a license. Telehealth encounters can experience challenges in managing medical emergencies and crises due to limited access to care within Kent County. Therefore, healthcare providers must establish protocols for handling emergencies during telehealth encounters, including procedures for triage, referral, and coordination with local emergency services or in urban healthcare clinics (Galetsi et al., 2022). 

Continuation of Ethical Care in Updated System

It is imperative to consider ethical principles of care treatment while upgrading the technological systems of telehealth and mobile health for diabetes care management in Kent County. This ethical care can be maintained in an updated telehealth system in several ways. For instance, healthcare providers deem patient-centered care to be a significant right of patients, and they must prioritize individual needs and preferences in telehealth-delivered services.

This helps meet the unique needs and circumstances of diabetics. Moreover, the healthcare providers will obtain informed consent from patients before initiating telehealth encounters, ensuring they understand the nature of telehealth services. Additionally, the ethical principle of confidentiality and privacy is maintained as healthcare providers comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations (Galetsi et al., 2022).

Conclusion

To conclude, Kent County of Texas has been facing several healthcare issues including diabetes. The Kent County Healthcare Clinic is explored where the interprofessional healthcare providers are evaluated along with the resources available at this clinic. The analysis showed the interprofessional team of pharmacists, physicians, and nurses are actively collaborating to promote patient safety among diabetes patients. Furthermore, the report delved into the cultural competency required for working in rural areas with diverse populations. M-health and text messages or automated reminder systems are outreach strategies based on technology use. The legal issues with these technologies include data breaches and subsequent lawsuits and financial ramifications. Ethical care is maintained with the use of upgraded telehealth systems.

References

Appuswamy, A. V., & Desimone, M. E. (2020). Managing diabetes in hard to reach populations: A review of telehealth interventions. Current Diabetes Reports, 20(7). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-020-01310-2 

Dugani, S. B., Mielke, M. M., & Vella, A. (2020). Burden and management of type 2 diabetes mellitus in rural United States. Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews, 37(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/dmrr.3410 

Galetsi, P., Katsaliaki, K., & Kumar, S. (2022). Exploring benefits and ethical challenges in the rise of mHealth (mobile healthcare) technology for the common good: An analysis of mobile applications for health specialists. Technovation, 121, 102598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102598 

Ibrahim, S. A., ElHajj, M., Zidan, A., Owusu, Y., & Awaisu, A. (2020). Barriers to diabetes adherence: Translation and cultural adaptation of the instrument into arabic context. Value in Health Regional Issues, 22, 49–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vhri.2020.03.005 

NURS FPX 6616 Assessment 2 Summary Report on Rural Health Care And Affordable Solutions

Lauffenburger, J. C., Barlev, R. A., Sears, E. S., Keller, P. A., McDonnell, M. E., Yom-Tov, E., Fontanet, C. P., Hanken, K., Haff, N., & Choudhry, N. K. (2021). Preferences for mHealth technology and text messaging communication in patients with type 2 diabetes: Qualitative interview study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(6), e25958. https://doi.org/10.2196/25958 

Sutherland, B. L., Pecanac, K., Bartels, C. M., & Brennan, M. B. (2020). Expect delays: Poor connections between rural and urban health systems challenge multidisciplinary care for rural Americans with diabetic foot ulcers. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13047-020-00395-y 

Texas Primary Care Consortium. (n.d.). Kent County. Www.txprimarycareconsortium.org. https://www.txprimarycareconsortium.org/tx/kent