Example Of Essay On The Community Health Clinic

In a local society set up, there are various aspects that are necessary to keep the community with its members going on. Such things as social amenities that include water services, sewerage services, educational facilities, health facilities and services amongst others are examples of such. The absence of these categories in a society will lead to a change in the normal functioning of the society and its affiliates. Narrowing down to the health services group, we look at a health clinic. We can explain a community health clinic as a health facility ran an operated by general medical practitioners such as nurses to offer health services to the locals of a certain area.
The clinic as a health facility serves to make sure that people are well taken care of in terms of their general health. There are various positive aspects that make a health service to be of advantage or a high quality. These criteria will be used to outline the positive aspects of such a facility. To start with, we may look, and the equipment and infrastructure fitted in a clinic. A hospital with modern health diagnosis equipment such as x-ray machines would be very efficient in its operations. On the same trend, we may use the criteria of highly skilled personnel. Persons who work in health clinics include nurses, laboratory technicians, doctors and such. (Jun,1999) Availability of these persons makes a facility of this kind to function well.
There is also the aspect of good record keeping. Data regarding patients is well kept for future references as well as to keep a trend of occurrences that could be used to make conclusions and inferences. Proper time management also makes a health facility satisfactory and sensible. (Community Health, 1983) Looking at the length of time spent attending to each
Patient one can make a conclusion that short time spent reveals efficiency. Timekeeping in booked appointments is also considered.
On the other hand, there are the limitations, which make the health facility not so pleasant. The community health clinic is likely to experience the problem of congestion. It arises mainly as a result of the operation space being limited or small in size. It in turn limits the number of patients who can be accommodated in the health care structure (Jun, 1999).
The problem of time is also a big shortcoming. A lot of time is spent attending to some patients while others are left unattended. The health facility may also lack adequate funds to finance its operations. It makes it hard for the acquisition of items such as drugs required for treating the patients as well as for the maintenance and running of this facility. Inadequate personnel to work in the community clinic also come in handy. The effect of this is that the large number of patients will not be attended (Cleveland, 1970). It may result in the worsening of the health status of most patients whose conditions require urgent attention.
The evaluation of the community health clinic facility is very specific and is dependent mainly on merit. The performance in terms of efficiency of treatment of patients, time keeping and the number of successful treatments carried out is crucial. A better facility will be one that observes time strictly, keeps the data on its patients chronologically and follows up all patients even after their discharging (Clemen, 2002). In terms of finances and funds that maintain the facility, it is also a criterion that supports the fact that the availability of adequate finances will lead to a very effective and efficient health centre for a community. A centre that lacks enough trained and highly skilled workers will have a reduced output of work. Under this criterion of skilled workforce, we note that the number of patients in community clinics always outdo the number of the work force assigned to such centre (Cleveland, 1970).

Thesis

Thesis statement: The subject meets shared criteria
The criteria used to arrive at the evaluation of the subject –The Community Health Clinic, have been met by the various descriptions given. They are:

Criterion of performance merit

Criterion of labour force
Criterion of time management
Criterion of operational space
Financial requirement criterion
Equipment and infrastructure criterion
The overall judgement may be asserted as the evaluation being successful when constrained by the used criteria.
The subject of interest, a community health clinic, falls under the social amenities category in a society. Social amenities are the services that are offered to people by the government and private personnel because the people cannot provide for themselves such services.
The health clinic as a topic is appropriate because it focuses on the benefits of such a facility to the members of the society. In addition, we also look at the elements that make this specific subject either advantageous or disadvantageous. Members of the community can acquire health care services in addition to better health standards in their lives.
The criteria used to bring the judgement on the subject depend on both positive and negative factors. On the positive side, we start with the principle of performance merit. A clinic will be evaluated based on how it delivers its services to the patients. A hospital with excellent service delivery is rated high. Additionally, the criteria for the labour force are also essential since workers are needed to offer services (Community Health, 1983). Efficiency in terms of time management is also one of the criteria. With proper time keeping in terms of short time in administering the patients or even punctuality in appointments is an active element.
On the other hand, negative aspects are explained by criteria such as poor record keeping of patients’ data, lack of adequate funds to maintain the clinic. Another criterion is in terms of availability of adequate labour force. Statistically, the numbers of patients always outdo that of the workers, and this renders the clinic inefficient in its operations.

Does the subject meet the specific criteria used in the evaluation or not?

The criteria chosen for the evaluation of the subject is met. Firstly, looking at those factors that contribute towards the goodness of the subject is performance merit. This criterion is met in that the health clinic performance in terms of serving its patients is obeyed because the services are well offered by the specialists present. These specialists are also trained and experienced which is under the criterion of qualifications of the workforce. It helps them to provide services to the patients with knowledge and precision. Similarly, the operation of the clinic centre required finances for its existence to be assured and for its activities to keep going on. We have here the criterion of finances (Cleveland, 1970). Without these funds, the community would not benefit from such a social amenity.
On the other hand, criteria for the negative aspects are also available. It is a trend that the number of the labours will never match the total needs that require attention; the criterion of numbers falls here. The community health clinic requires an adequate number of workers to attend to the patients and in our case; this criterion is met because patients outnumber the health practitioners. The approach of time management is another case. Poor time management in terms of punctuality, long working hours, inability to attend to the patients fast, satisfies this criterion of time. The criterion of poor organisation and general management is also met. For instance, the community clinics may be managed by the locals who may have other self-motives or even other prior interests. Cases of corruption and embezzlement of funds confirm this criterion.
In conclusion, we looked at the subject “community health clinic” whose primary role is to provide the essential need of health care to the members of the society. A society cannot be fully self sufficient and hence it needs social amenities that will ensure from agencies such as the government. The most crucial of these is the health services. Looking at the evaluation of this subject coupled with the criteria that govern the arguments, we can conclude that the assessment helps understand the nature of our topic matter. It is, therefore, necessary to appreciate the role of the community clinics despite the shortcomings that may tag along. This is because they ensure that the people within the society live a convenient and productive life.

References

Clemen-Stone, S., McGuire, S. L., & Eigsti, D. G. (2002). Comprehensive community health nursing: Family, aggregate & community practice. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
Cleveland Clinic Foundation. (1970). Comprehensive community health care. Cleveland.
Community Health Management Corporation. (1983). A Guide to Assessing data-processing needs in publicly funded health clinics. Skokie, IL: Community Health Management Corp.
Jun, J. B, Jacobson, S. H.and Swisher, J.R. (1999). Applications of discrete-event simulation in health-care clinics: A survey. Journal of the Operational Research Society. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2600669