Health Policy/Systems: Overview and History

This article describes the complex healthcare policy and financing systems in the US within a historic and political context for how the US arrived at these systems. It also provides an overview of frameworks useful for articulating how social work may have an increased influence on policies impacting the healthcare system along with specific arenas ripe for social work interventions towards healthcare system improvements. Social workers have the obligation, through the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, and the requisite skills, to participate in the healthcare policy process ensuring that they not only have a place at policy making tables, but that members of communities impacted by these policies have an opportunity to assist in setting the healthcare policy agenda and programs to best serve them.

SSDoH and Aging in Persons of African Ancestry

Persons of African Ancestry (Black) encompasses a broad spectrum of individuals across the African diaspora. The diversity of the Black community must be considered in the context of SSDoH especially as it relates to diseases of aging. Blacks report higher levels of discrimination as a barrier to Alzheimer’s Disease or related dementia (ADRD) care, are less likely to receive timely diagnoses of ADRD, and many do not trust that a future cure for ADRD will be shared equally and equitability with their community compared to their white counterparts. Once diagnosed, older Blacks, are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have ADRD. A key to addressing the Black community’s ADRD needs is speaking openly about the historical underpinnings related to social injustice and racism as a link to appropriate ADRD diagnoses. Ultimately, SSDoH impact treatment, healthcare policy, and the future of biomedical research for the Black community.

Strategies to enhance applications to postgraduate nursing programmes

In the final instalment of his healthcare policy column, emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses a new report that looks at ways to encourage graduates in other disciplines into nursing

P127 Parliamentary Inquiry into Sleep Health Awareness in Australia: How patient-centric is the process?

Introduction The parliamentary inquiry into sleep health represents one of few platforms accessible to patients and their family/carers to contribute to the development of healthcare policy alongside other key stakeholder groups (i.e. healthcare professionals, organisations). Balancing diverse and sometimes divergent views of various stakeholder groups can be challenging, thus we set out to explore how patients and family/carer submissions were interpreted by the inquiry and translated into health policy recommendations. Methods Written submissions made to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Sleep Health Awareness in Australia 2018 by self-identified patients or family/carers with narcolepsy (n=13) were extracted and thematically analysed using the Framework Approach. Each submission was systematically coded, with emergent themes evaluated against the final policy recommendations made by the inquiry. Results We identified three major themes: 1) ‘Pathways to Treatment & Care’ regarding concerns around lack of healthcare and research resource allocation for narcolepsy; 2) ‘Help-seeking Experience’ related to barriers to help-seeking and accessing care; 3) ‘Patient and Family/Carers’ Lived Experience of Disease’ which encompassed the tangible effects narcolepsy has on the daily lives of patients and family/carers. Discussion While patients and their family/carers prioritised issues that affected their daily lives (i.e. mental health sequela, workplace accommodations), policy recommendations focused on healthcare infrastructure, funding and engagement. Increased transparency, developing processes to balance stakeholder priorities and improving accessibility to stakeholder engagement are needed if patient and family/carer needs are to be met, and for healthcare policy to remain targeted and trusted by the public.

Ethical gap to implement utilitarianism in healthcare policy: A hidden Pandemic Ethics Crisis.

not available Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(5) 2021 p.178-182