Don't abandon Labour's initiative to improve access to health care for world's poor people, charities urge

Important initiatives in health care include (a) improving access to services for disadvantaged populations, (b) providing equal access for individuals with limited or non-English proficiency, and (c) ensuring cultural competence of health-care providers to facilitate effective services for individuals from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, 2001). This article provides a brief overview of the use of technology by speech-language pathologists and audiologists to extend their services to underserved populations who live in remote geographic areas, or when cultural and linguistic differences impact service delivery.

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Is Being Insured Sufficient to Ensure Effective Access to Health Care among Poor People in Mexico in the Long Term?

Health Services Research ◽

10.1111/1475-6773.12541 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 51 (4) ◽

pp. 1319-1322

Author(s):

Sandra G. Sosa-Rubí

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Access To Health Care ◽

Poor People ◽

Access To Health

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Telemedicine Basics

10.1093/med/9780190066475.003.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 3-11

Author(s):

Guenevere Burke ◽

Jared Lucas

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Emergency Medicine ◽

Access To Health Care ◽

Electronic Information ◽

Remote Areas ◽

Access To Health ◽

History Of ◽

Key Terms ◽

Improve Access

Telemedicine is a rapidly growing field in health care and emergency medicine. Telemedicine, telehealth, and virtual health refer to the use of telecommunications technology and electronic information to support health and provide care over distance. It has been used to improve access to health care in geographically remote areas for decades, but its use and recognized benefits have expanded considerably over the years, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of telemedicine, introduces key terms, and reviews basic definitions that are foundational to telemedicine practice. Finally, it summarizes a wide array of telehealth applications in emergency medicine, which are detailed further in later chapters.

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Participation as Inclusion and Exclusion: Policing the Boundaries of “Citizenship” in Roma Health Mediation

Sociological Research Online ◽

10.1177/1360780419837233 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 430-443

Author(s):

Charlotte Kühlbrandt

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Access To Health Care ◽

Social Inclusion ◽

Participant Observation ◽

Community Members ◽

Access To Health ◽

The Social ◽

Roma Health ◽

Governing Institutions ◽

Improve Access

Participatory health interventions have long been advocated as an approach to help marginalised community members exercise their rights as citizens, including access to health care. More than two decades ago, the Roma health mediation programme was established in Romania as a participatory community health intervention. Mediators are employed specifically to act as intermediaries between ‘Roma patients’ and local authorities or health professionals, with the overall aim to increase trust and improve access to health care. Based on data gathered during a year of ethnographic fieldwork with Roma health mediators in Romania, including participant observation and interviews, this article analyses the social processes by which participatory approaches produce both social inclusion and exclusion. It illustrates how mediators exceeded their remit of health and attempted to discipline communities into forms of neoliberal citizenship. Mediators reframed access to health care not as a right that community members already have, but as a benefit that must be individually ‘earned’ through the fulfilment of neoliberal citizenship. The article argues that far from being an ‘empowering tool’, community participation can extend the power of governing institutions and thereby may in fact contribute to the maintenance of a political status quo that perpetuates the precarisation of marginalised communities.

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