Access to Rehabilitation

Welcome to Understanding Rehabilitation Content Development Project. Please do not edit unless you are involved in this project, but please come back in the near future to check out new information!! If you would like to get involved in this project and earn accreditation for your contributions, please get in touch!

Original Editors - Add your name/s here if you are the original editor/s of this page.  User Name

Top Contributors - Naomi O'Reilly, Vidya Acharya, Tarina van der Stockt, Rucha Gadgil, Olajumoke Ogunleye, Tony Lowe, Oyemi Sillo and Kim Jackson      

Introduction

Access to health care means having timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes and comprises of four components;

1. Coverage: Facilitates entry into the health care system.
   • Uninsured people are less likely to receive medical care and more likely to have poor health status (Healthy People 2020).
2. Services: Having a usual source of care and / or usual health care provider.
   • People with a usual source of care have better health outcomes, fewer disparities, and lower costs (Healthy People 2020).
   • While people with a usual place of care and a usual provider are more likely to receive preventive services and recommended screenings than people with no usual source of care (Blewett, et al., 2008).
3. Timeliness: Ability to provide health care when the need is recognised.
   • Timeliness in health care is system’s capacity to provide care quickly after a need is recognized. (Healthy People 2020).
   • Timely delivery of appropriate care can help reduce mortality and morbidity for chronic conditions, such as kidney disease (Smart & Titus, 2011).
4. Workforce: Health Service with capable, qualified, culturally competent providers.
   • Ensuring well-coordinated, high-quality health care requires the establishment of a supportive health system infrastructure (IOM, 2010). Key elements include:
     • Well-distributed capable and qualified workforce.
     • Organizational capacity to support culturally competent services and ongoing improvement efforts.
     • Health care safety net for hospital admissions of vulnerable populations.

Challenges

Add your content to this page here!

Barriers

There are wide range of barriers that can prevent individuals from receiving high quality health care.  These include:

• Governmental: Laws or policies that do not consider rehabilitation needs of the population e.g. rehabilitation services and assistive products not covered under a nation’s Health Care Plan
• Institutional: Policies or standards that systematically disadvantage those in need of rehabilitation services e.g.  at a health care facility people may need to stand in a long line before receiving services, which can be a barrier for individuals who have balance problems or a hospital administrator who does not allocate needed resources for rehabilitation services. )

• Service Delivery: Negative attitudes, presumptions, prejudices, or misconceptions e.g. low prioritisation of coordination of care by rehabilitation professionals leading to a lack of appropriate referrals for needed continuum of care.  
• Environmental: Barriers in the built or natural environment e.g. no ramp to enter the health facility or no public transportation that accommodates wheelchairs
• Informational:  Not offering the same health information to all people e.g. lack of data and research on which treatment interventions for specific impairments are most effective.

Resources

• Cieza A, Causey K, Kamenov K, Hanson SW, Chatterji S, Vos T. Global Estimates of the need for rehabilitation based on the Global Burden of Disease study 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet. 2020 Dec 1.