Program Activities and Their Theoretical Bases, Essay Example

Introduction

Community health offering innovative care and educational services (CHOICES) is a health program offered by the Alachua county board of county commissioners (BOCC). The program is designed to provide improved healthcare services to uninsured local residents of Alachua County through partnerships with local medical and dental care providers (McKenzie, Neiger, & Thackeray, 2009). . This intervention healthcare program intends to bring many changes to healthcare service provision and the manner in which healthcare is provided to the medically ill.

Summarize briefly the changes that the program is intended to bring about

CHOICES is intended to bring the following changes in healthcare

• CHOICES intend to enable many working uninsured people to access the medical services that they could have not accessed due to inadequate health coverage.
• Preventive healthcare services under this program intent to enable eligible residents avoid emergency room visits and costly hospitalization
• Regular preventive care under this program also intends to reduce the risks associated with late diagnosis of chronic diseases.
• It intends to provide quality healthcare services to the medically underserved Alachua residents and make Alachua County healthier and productive.

Describe at least two key activities of the program. For each activity:

Relate the activity to the intervention strategy listed Chapter 8 of the McKenzie textbook. (For example, is this a health communication strategy?)

Describe any evidence that was used in developing activities.

Explain whether you think the activity is appropriate for the priority population

Two key activities of the program include;

• Health education and wellness program

CHOICES health services works hard to provide health services to Alachua County. Health education and wellness activity provides information and resources on a wide variety of health-related topics. This program also focuses on nutrition, heart health, weigh management and exercise just to mention a few. This intervention is like a health communication strategy. The activity is appropriate in that it helps the community of Alachua to overcome health hazards.

• Disease management program

This healthcare intervention enables the CHOICES participants to identify the health risks earlier enough before they progress seriously to disaster. Through teamwork members experience improved health overtime. This activity is appropriate to the priority population of Alachua given that it was established to cater for the poor and un insured Alachua residents.

Describe the theoretical bases that ground these activities and whether these are appropriate.

The health education and wellness activity is grounded by communication strategy theory. This theory is the cornerstone of any patient-practitioner relationship. This theory will enable improved healthcare services provision through education and good healthcare worker communication skills. On the other hand, the disease management program is grounded by protection-motivation theory. Acccording to this theory the change in behavior of an individual is possible when appeal is made to the individual’s fears. Disease management activities that involve health hazards prevention by earlier identification of risks and taking appropriate intervention is consistent with protection-motivation theory. Also social cognitive theory falls under this activity. Social cognitive theory suggests that even if knowledge of health risks is important/ prerequisite for change, additional self-influences are necessary for improved healthcare services to occur (McKenzie, Neiger, & Thackeray,2009)..

In light of this analysis, summarize whether you think each of the activities is appropriately designed and will bring about the intended outcomes

All the above activities or interventions provided by CHOICES are appropriately designed to bring about the intended outcomes. The mission of CHOICES, which is to improve healthcare access for the residents of Alachua through he administration of innovative and cost effective programs will become a fulfilled dream with the activities that CHOICES is involved in. The activities as explained above together with their theoretical bases provides a proper strategy to ensuring that the intended outcome is achieved (McKenzie, Neiger, & Thackeray,2009).

References

McKenzie, J., Neiger, B., & Thackeray, R. (2009). Planning, Implementation, & Evaluating Health Promotion Programs. San Francisco, California: Pearson Education (5^th Edition) http://www.alachuacounty.us/Depts/CSS/CHOICES/Pages/CHOICES.aspx