NUR3101: Analysis of a PHC Strategy and Australian Health Issues

This essay analyzes the National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework in Australia, focusing on the strategy to tackle social determinants of health, particularly concerning hypertension. It addresses potential actions related to education, social status, housing, access to healthcare, and health risk factors like alcohol consumption and poor dietary habits. The essay explores the use of technology for home monitoring and support, the alignment of the strategy with the WHO's five key principles of primary health care, and the relevance of the strategy to nursing practices. The epidemiology of hypertension in Australia is discussed, highlighting its prevalence among different demographics. The role of nurses in promoting awareness, education, and the implementation of new technologies for patient care is emphasized. The essay references various sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running Head: PRIMARY HEALTHCARE
PHC Strategic Framework
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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The National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework is an approach towards
increasing the quality of healthcare settings all across the country through the help of partnership
between the commonwealth, states and territories by the Australian government. It provides a
systematic coordination between the action of commonwealth, states and local government to
ensure a synchronized approach in developing primary healthcare planning and efficient delivery
of service. It focuses on the primary healthcare of the country and targets the ongoing health
issues of Australia (Australian Government Department of Health, 2019).
The strategy chosen from this strategic framework by Standing council on Health (2013),
is the strategic outcome 3: Take action to tackle the social determinants of health and wellbeing
with emphasis on health promotion, prevention, screening and early intervention. This strategy
will be used to decrease the ongoing issue of blood pressure in the population of Australia. The
potential action 3.1 of this strategy will focus on the public health issue in Australia by
addressing the social health determinants including education, social status, and housing, access
to healthcare services, employment and social status. A number of factors are the reason for an
individual’s wellbeing and health that lies outside the system of health. Employment and
education are major opportunities for individuals and families to improve their health and
wellbeing, betterment of infrastructure and roads could be a significant change in being able to
access health care facilities, providing clean water and fresh food with suitable housing can help
in the maintenance of good health and an individual’s literacy and socio economic background
can influence their interaction with the healthcare system (Carey & Crammond, 2015). Potential
action 3.2 focuses on the health related risk factors including alcohol consumption, being idle,
poor dietary habits, unsafe sexual practices, and sun exposure. The commonwealth-state
collaboration for the prevention of health with the help of National Partnership Agreement on

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Preventive Health leverages this action. It works for improving the capability of locals to support
the populations in approaching primary healthcare that includes preventive health, with the other
organizations who are active for these purposes. Australian National Preventive Health Agency
(ANPHA) is also a part of this strategy by supporting its role in identification and development
of best practices for prevention of diseases and health promotion. Pharmacists and community
workers need to participate in this strategy so that they can prevent, screen, and assisting in early
intervention and health self-management (Badland et al., 2014). Potential action 3.3 aims to
increase and evaluate the best intervention of latest technologies that improves home based
monitoring, treatment and support. In this strategy the policy makers, providers and funding
bodies find the accurate options for providing care and support that are based on the result of the
research and evaluation. It will include increasing use of technology to improve home
monitoring applications that will guide in identification of lifestyle risk factors of people and
allowing them to look after them who are vulnerable to chronic diseases and at the risk of
immediate care. It assesses the risk factors through national broadband network, telehealth and
ehealth to identify the health risks. Social media is also utilized, which is an important part of
everyday life and that will help in patient care and support. Technology of social media can be
used for management of self-care, patient recall, checkup services, increasing communication
and information technology in the target populations who are a target of lifestyle diseases such as
hypertension (The University of Sydney, 2019). This strategy helps in enhancing equity and
social justice in terms of healthcare in the target population of people who are suffering from
hypertension. The social determinants such as illiteracy, socioeconomic backwardness,
unawareness, health issues are addressed in this strategy that can used for prevention of the
chronic diseases Australia is suffering from. It also looks after the indigenous population of the

3PRIMARY HEALTHCARE
country who are the target of social injustice and health inequity. According to Australian
Bureau of Statistics (2019), the epidemiology of hypertension has been on a high, which is
12.4% leaving behind osteoarthritis, hyperlipidemia, depression, anxiety and asthma. Males are
more prone to hypertension than females as seen by the statistics, which is 35.3% males and
32.3% females and people of rural areas have hypertension more than the people living in metros
and that is 38.6% and 30.5%. 160,909 deaths were reported in Australia in the year of 2017 and
the leading cause of death is ischemic heart disease, which was 11.6%.
The chosen strategy aligns with the 5 key principles of primary health care by WHO such
as health promotion is context driven, health promotion integrates the 3 dimensions of the WHO
health definition, health promotion underpins the overall responsibility of the state in promoting
health, health promotion champions good health as a public good and participation is a core
principle in promoting health. The principle that aligns the most with the strategy is Health
promotion is context driven because it focuses on health and the underlying social determinants
that increases health complications, it also analyzes ethnic and gender gaps, and socioeconomic
backwardness as a reason for disease and health patterns in a population. In this situation it is the
prevalence of hypertension in the population of Australia (World Health Organization, 2019).
This strategy is relevant to the practices of nurses and their different roles and
responsibilities in the field of healthcare. This strategy helps in eradicating the social
determinants, which is the reason for increasing lifestyle risk factors and diseases such as
illiteracy, unemployment and inaccessibility to healthcare services for people living in rural
areas. Nurses can take part in increasing the promotion and awareness about diseases and ways
to enhance health. The target population can be guided by the nursing staffs in hospitals so that
they have less risk of suffering from hypertension (Scanlon et al., 2016). Nurses can train

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themselves according to the new technologies used to increase the treatment and quality of
support, also by improving communication through the help of technology such as social media.
They can take part in health camps and workshops to educate the target group about the
prevention and cure of hypertension, and the ways to implement nutrition, physical activity and
refraining from smoking and alcohol that can increase the chances of hypertension.

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References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). 3303.0 - Causes of Death, Australia, 2017. Retrieved 15
December 2019, from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by
%20Subject/3303.0~2017~Main%20Features~Australia's%20leading%20causes%20of
%20death,%202017~2
Australian Government Department of Health. (2019). Department of Health | National Primary
Health Care Strategic Framework. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/nphc-strategic-
framework
Badland, H., Whitzman, C., Lowe, M., Davern, M., Aye, L., Butterworth, I., ... & Giles-Corti, B.
(2014). Urban liveability: emerging lessons from Australia for exploring the potential for
indicators to measure the social determinants of health. Social science & medicine, 111,
64-73.
Carey, G., & Crammond, B. (2015). Systems change for the social determinants of health. BMC
public health, 15(1), 662.
Scanlon, A., Cashin, A., Bryce, J., Kelly, J. G., & Buckely, T. (2016). The complexities of
defining nurse practitioner scope of practice in the Australian context. Collegian, 23(1),
129-142.
Standing council on Health. (2013). National Primary Health Care Strategic
Framework [Ebook]. Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved from

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https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/6084A04118674329CA
257BF0001A349E/$File/NPHCframe.pdf
The University of Sydney. (2019). The 6 top chronic health issues affecting Australians.
Retrieved 15 December 2019, from
https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/03/10/the-six-top-chronic-health-issues-
affecting-australians--new-res.html
World Health Organization. (2019). Primary health care. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from
https://www.who.int/health-topics/primary-health-care#tab=tab_1