| Show frequent or rare or whether the problem results in significant morbidity or mortality However the most important problems are those that the community feels are their greatest concemns These prioritized lists suggest the order in which health concems should be approached StepImplementing Targeted Intervention Programs For those problems the practice chooses to emphasize the practice needs to developstrategy and methodology for positively As one might impacting the problem predict the majority of proposed interventions clearly are preventive in nature As practitioners study these priority health problems and consider interventions they are exploring the breadth of preventive medicine and incorporatingvariety of educational and social medical interventions Obviously in the real world the choice of interventions is affected by important concems such as cost dollars and personnel likelihood for success and the availability of community partnerships Sometimes the intervention may be as simple as the inclusion ofpreventive health flow chart in the medical record participating inhealth fair to increase awareness of major health concems or participation incommunity campaign to raise childhood immunization levels StepMonitoring and Evaluation This final step is critical to complete the Consistent with the data COPC process gathering and monitoring efforts described in the Total Quality Management and Continuous Qualty Improvement literature Blumenthal 1993 the practice needs to collect data to determine the effectiveness of Not only does this their interventions evaluation process allow us to improve or eliminate interventions that are not successful it encourages us to celebrate with our community partners those Conclusion Health professions education must look beyond the medical model tomore health oriented model Smith et al 1991 Community-oriented primary care ishealth care delivery paradigm with proven effectiveness and application in our nationhealth care system Institute of Medicine 1984 Kukulka Christianson Moscovice DeVries 1994 COPC is one approach that systematically identifies and addresses the health care needs of an individual anddefined community in an integrated fashion COPG can providenumber of opportunities to develop more effective public health programs such as tracking infectious immunization developing diseases programs setting up lead poisoning abatement programs community to manage or developing teen pregnancy prevention programs One of the benefits of the COPC model includes the ability to change negative health behaviors with targeted interventions and preventive These programs offer the programs opportunity to observe the impact of these interventions and document its usefulness COPC also has the ability to empower the its own care by identifying resources and expertise Mouton Cash Shore 2001 Equally important the COPC model appears 1o offer an effective educational paradigm for health professionals to gaingreater appreciation for the importance of preventive health care in their practices Finally it has our experience that through the been techniques discussed in this article health care providers are able to comprehend this approach to health care delivery Our hope is that more of Utahproviders will consider incorporating these principles into their practices for the benefit of their communities interventions that do succeed Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
