Using APA format, write a 4 to 6 page paper (not including cover and reference

Using APA format, write a 4 to 6 page paper (not including cover and reference page) using 1 inch margins, double-spacing, and a 12 point Times New Roman font. Paper must include a cover and a reference page. Learning Activity #2 Submit a deliverable designing a plan to implement at least one best practice in patient and family engagement and activation that includes the following components: assessment of the need or opportunity, readiness for change, identification of goals and resource needs, selection of performance tracking methods, and revenue improvement or cost containment.
There are two important definitions of public health. In 1920, public health was defined by Charles Winslow as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, control of community infections, and education of individuals regarding hygiene to ensure a standard of living for health maintenance. Sixty years later, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), in its 1988 Future of Public Health report, defined public health as an organized community effort to address public health by applying scientific and technical knowledge to promote health. Both definitions point to broad community efforts to promote health activities to protect the population’s health status. The Affordable Care Act also emphasizes the importance of prevention and wellness. The establishment of the Prevention and Public Health Fund has supported several community-based public health programs. To date, the Fund has invested in a broad range of evidence-based activities, including community and clinical prevention initiatives; research, surveillance, and tracking; public health infrastructure; immunizations and screenings; tobacco prevention; and public health workforce and training. As of 2016, funding has been allocated to public health priorities including Alzheimer’s disease prevention, chronic disease self-management, diabetes prevention, hospital promotion of breastfeeding, and lead poisoning prevention.
The development of public health is important to note as part of the basics of the U.S. healthcare system because its development was separate from the development of private medical practices. Public health specialists view health from a collectivist and preventative care viewpoint: to protect as many citizens as possible from health issues and to provide strategies to prevent health issues from occurring. The definitions cited in the previous paragraph emphasize this viewpoint. Public health concepts were in stark contrast to traditional medicine, which focused on the relationship between a provider and patient. Private practitioners held an individualistic viewpoint—people more often would be paying for their services from their health insurance or from their own pockets. Physicians would be providing their patients guidance on how to cure their diseases, not prevent disease. This chapter will discuss the concept of health and healthcare delivery and the role of public health in delivering health care. The concepts of primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary prevention and the role of public health in those activities will be highlighted. Discussion will also focus on the origins of public health, the major role epidemiology plays in public health, the role of public health in disasters, core public health activities, the collaboration of public health and private medicine, and the importance of public health consumers.
As a healthcare consumer, it is important to recognize the role that public health plays in our health care. If you are sick, you go to your physician for medical advice, which may mean receiving a prescription. However, there are often times that you may not go see your physician because you do not have health insurance, or you do not feel that sick or you would like to change one of your lifestyle behaviors. Public health surrounds consumers with educational opportunities to change a health condition or behavior. You can visit the CDC’s website, which provides information about different diseases and health conditions. You can also visit your local health department. CDC has become very proactive in developing successful social media campaigns regarding public health issues. Traditional medicine has also become entrenched in social media as well. These tools are an effective way to communicate with a society that is so connected with social media applications on a daily basis.
The concept of public health has been more publicized in the 21st century because of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the anthrax attacks in post offices, the natural disasters of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Ebola and Zika virus epidemics, and recurrent flooding in the Midwest. Funding has increased for public health activities because of these events. The concept of bioterrorism is now a reality. Because public health is now considered an integral component to battling terrorism, and consequently a matter of national security, federal funding dramatically increased.
Also pertinent to the conversation this week is that Patient engagement and Patient Activation are often used interchangeably, a quirk of the current healthcare discussion, in which patient engagement has come to mean both. Patient engagement, as defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), clearly includes both engagement and activation:
Patient Engagement is the involvement in their own care by individuals (and others they designate to engage on their behalf), with the goal that they make competent, well-informed decisions about their health and health care and take action to support those decisions.”
With roots in the Chronic Care Model, the concept of patient activation describes the actions as:
Collaborative Care – that the patient is in active partnership with and shares health decisions with their healthcare provider.
Self-Management – that the patient is actively learning health related skills and behaviors to manage conditions in their daily lives, such as adhering to medication, tracking symptoms, eating better, moving more and doing rehab or physiotherapy.