Benchmark-Planning Better Health for the Future. Essay

Benchmark-Planning Better Health for the Future
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Benchmark-Planning Better Health for the Future
Why is population health such a strong focus for the future? What needs to happen for this to truly expand? Why have we struggled with this in the past? What are some opportunities available today?
Before delving deeper into the question, it is crucial to, first of all, define population health. There have been numerous debates over the definition of population health. For this paper, Kindig and Stoddart’s definition will be used. Kindig and Stoddard (2003) define population health as “the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group.” Population health is a wide term that needs to be narrowed down for purposes of attaining a clearer picture of how it can be adapted in healthcare to help boost outcomes. As an approach to healthcare, population health seeks to “improve the health of the entire population and to reduce health inequities among population groups” (Government of Canada, 2012). So, population health is an approach to healthcare that also seeks to ensure fairness in availing healthcare services to the public. The above offers a credible reason why population health is such a strong focus for the future. Social inequality continues to greatly impact society and condemn a significant portion of the population to inadequate healthcare resources. So, in trying to reduce inequality in society, healthcare inequities or imbalances will also be eradicated. Attaining the goal of holistic healthcare in society is an almost impossible feat considering the current state of healthcare and society. However, with measures to help improve the state of society and eradicate social inequality, it is only appropriate that health imbalances are also eradicated. Attainment of complete social equity can never be realistic if imbalances in healthcare persist. So, a focus on population health for the future is as a result of the need to ensure fairness in society while distributing opportunities and resources fairly.
The question of what needs to happen to ensure expansion as well as why the world has struggled with the idea of population health in the past go hand in hand. So, in this paper, these two will be addressed side by side. One of the reasons why the world has struggled with the idea of population health has been the fact that the idea of health was being interpreted as the absence of disease. For a long time, therefore, great health was taken to mean to be a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being” (Government of Canada, 2012). Limiting healthcare to simply a state limits the understanding of the term as a whole as well as the various aspects and factors that impact healthcare. So, to ensure the expansion of the above, these limitations have to be eliminated. Healthcare has to be considered holistically. Broadening the idea of healthcare helps to recognize “the range of social, economic, and physical environmental factors that contribute to health” (Government of Canada, 2012). So, the expansion of the idea of population health will only happen if the notion of health is...