Challenges of Primary Health Care Delivery in Older Patients

Challenges Of Primary Health Care Delivery In Older Patients1
Challenges of primary health care delivery in older patients.
Student name
Institute of afflation

Challenges Of Primary Health Care Delivery In Older Patients2
Introduction
The advancements in the medical field, constant innovation in the technology, and
improved standards for living have raised the life expectancy of an average individual in the
society. Since most of these individuals are in retirement age and are often lacking social
support, the stress on the healthcare and administration system to manage health needs of the
population becomes evident. The challenge arise even more for the delivery of primary health
care, which focus on health management, awareness, and patient engagement for
comprehensive treatment model. Through the course of this review the challenges in delivery
of primary healthcare, and resource allocation for aged population are studied. The review
further critique varied models of health service delivery to reflect on the most comprehensive
primary healthcare model.
Review
Older people’ healthcare and policy, laws and legislation
In western economies such asthe Australian government, incorporation of ageism
context in the health care administration is evident. The focus of the aged care in such
economies is also to ensure health care protection. Framework such as the Medicare, or
Medicaid (as in the United States or Australia) are intended to give health care administration
resources for varied procedures (Breton and deLeuuw, 2010). When national policies in the
cases such as the US and the UK are studied it is noted that the model of care here is
fragmented. The elderly are covered through social security tax, voluntary insurance,
prescription drug coverage and such that is intended to improve patient care (Brown, 2010).
In countries such as the US. Varied health care policies are at place which are focused
towards providing the older people autonomy in the context of the healthcare needs (Bernier
and Clavier, 2011). However, there remains a decentralized role of the government in this

Challenges Of Primary Health Care Delivery In Older Patients3
regard. Here the state provides financial support to the people and help them achieve a
comprehensive healthcare plan. However, this raises concerns for health policy changes, and
raises concerns for the unified model of care for the old people, especially that focus is on the
management of health, and not just treating ailments.
Aged care is a debatable frameworkwhere every country has different viewpoints and
concerns. As a result focus towards policy making is also different. All the more explicitly,
there are economic, social, cultural and political issues related with aged care administration
delivery that are impacted by the country.This raises challenges for the multi-diversity and
multi departmental levels to provide consistent care to the patients (WHO, 2015). The lack of
resources with the hospitals, especially in rural areas or in areas with low socio economic
levels is also a prominent reason for the management of uniformity in primary healthcare.
Rationales for resource allocation
Reports by WHO and UNICEF (2018) notes that the focus of government is often to
allocate resources for the management of ailments like HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other
vaccine preventable conditions that impact a large number of people. On the other hand, older
individuals are bound to have interminable disorders for example, cardiovascular or
cerebrovascular diseases, Parkinson's illness, diabetes mellitus and others, that demands
constant care, management and frequent hospitalization (Jackson and Nolen, 2010). The
focus on these ailments is often patient centric, and resources to minimize these challenges
through reducing patient disparity, aligning patient involvement, introducing management
and health awareness initiatives and training the healthcare professionals is relatively less
across the world (Laura, 2010). As per Zhong et al. (2017), older people are often treated as
liabilities in the society and are deemed as individual with low social capital, as a result they