Articles: community-health-services.
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This article suggests that the community hospital can be an important key to health reform at the local level; that community benefit guidelines are acceptable to hospitals and community leaders in a 49-site national demonstration program; and that these guidelines can prove useful for communities in moving toward health reform. Types of community involvement by hospitals are categorized, and examples of each type are developed. Community benefit programs can be a promising approach to effectively respond at the local level to the problems of poor health status, lack of access to care, and increasing health care costs. Addressing financing of care without attention to changes in the delivery system will not lead to effective health reform.
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To present the educational opportunities provided by a model clinic for homeless persons. ⋯ Those factors that contribute to the success of this education and service model include the professional satisfaction that results from providing care to patients who previously have not had access to health care; a team approach that includes faculty, students, nurses, and social workers; an environment that fosters clinical judgment rather than expensive tests; and the opportunity to teach social responsibility in the process of providing health care. We encourage other schools to consider the development of clinics for the homeless as alternative ambulatory training sites.
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Nepal is among the 20 countries with the lowest human development index, according to the criteria of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and has a very high under-five mortality rate, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In December 1992, the Japan Medical Association (JMA) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) began jointly carrying out a maternal and child health (MCH) project. Its beneficiaries are the population of Kavre District, the District Public Health Office in Kavre, the Central Region Health Directorate, and the Ministry of Health of Nepal. ⋯ This is the first cooperative project organized by JICA that involves the participation of a non-governmental organization, in this case, the JMA. The JMA will construct the primary Health Care (PHC) Center, equip it with a dormitory and safe water supply system, and provide sufficient drugs for 2 years. The Japan International Cooperation Agency will dispatch MCH experts and provide medical equipment and supplies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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The emergency medical services (EMS) system of the future has the opportunity to serve as a regional community health monitoring and referral system. Such a system would shift attention from care of the individual to cost-effective community health efforts using community resource integration, while emphasizing individual responsibility for health. ⋯ Coordination through the EMS system and a regional center would permit these resources to be used in an efficient and accountable fashion. We propose a model in which the EMS system could contribute to coordinated regional health monitoring and maintenance, timely and appropriate health care legislation and regulation, and high-impact health care education and intervention in the setting of self-destructive individual behavior.