What are the challenges of managing this chronic disease?
Addressing Chronic Disease
According to the Population Health course text, “Roughly 40 million Americans are still uninsured and 112 million Americans (almost half of the U.S. population, 45%) suffer from at least one chronic condition” in the United States, an estimated 125 million persons have at least one chronic condition, and half of these persons have multiple chronic conditions” (Fabius, and Pracilio, Nash, Clark, 2015, p. 4 ).
This week’s Learning Resources examine numerous health problems that result in a need for ongoing care. As you have explored this week, many costs are associated with chronic disease—both in terms of lives lost and socioeconomic burden. What can be done to help reduce chronic disease at the population level?
For this Discussion, you will take an in-depth look at chronic disease, and you will evaluate ways to address this issue through the application of chronic disease models and frameworks. In addition, you will consider the impact of the challenges of managing chronic disease on quality of care delivery.
To prepare:
- Review the application of chronic disease models as a method for managing chronic diseases at the population level.
- Consider characteristics of chronic disease models and how to apply them as presented in the Learning Resources.
- Consult Figure 13–7 (p. 267) in Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness and consider examples of determinants and outcomes of population health with chronic diseases in a specific subpopulation. Then, select one chronic disease on which to focus for this Discussion.
- Ask yourself, “What are the challenges of managing this chronic disease? How do these challenges limit the ability to deliver effective quality care?” Conduct additional research using the Walden Library and credible websites as necessary.