Introduction
For all Americans to achieve health equity, to promote and to maintain health quality, health care is essential, including its complete access. Over the first half of this decade, millions of people in the United States still lack coverage, with a significant reduction in the figure of uninsured. People have gained health cover because of the Act of 2010 in Patient and Affordable care (Uberoi et al. 2016). Issues arise in access to health-care because of the significance disparities by family income, education, age, sex, and race. All levels of access to care exist with these disparities, including access to primary care and having an ongoing source of concern. As millions of people in the United States live in rural areas, variations exist by geography, whereby due to workforce shortage, there is a lack of access to primary care in these areas. Poverty and level of urbanization affect a person's access to health-care services, and future efforts are required to offer culturally competent care to diverse inhabitants.
A Summary of the Current Situation
Access to health care to attain the best conceivable health outcome can be in the note as having an appropriate utilization of personal health amenities. Based on mutual trust and communication, patients can develop a good relationship by discovering workers who meet their requirements and receive the needed services in the sites of care, therefore, attaining entry into the health-care system. Patients and physicians can avoid complications of health conditions, control acute episodes, and prevent illness by perceiving that it is essential to note the timely access to health-care. The entrance requires services fulfillment and identification of these needs for health-care in use, obtaining, or reaching the services (Thomas-Henkel & Schulman, 2017). Access to health-care is a continual process whereby many factors affect the ease of it even if it is available, for instance, difficulties in transportation to the facilities, patient's ability to pay for care, ease of appointments and availability of providers. The significant factors of health care usage are the necessity for health-care services and health status to maintain or advance well-being. A person's socioeconomic environment, physical environment, and characteristics are the primary determinant of health.
People's genetics and biology are the individual characteristics that need medical care because of inherited conditions and diseases. The conditions occurrence differs from factors such as employment status, ethnicity, race, age, and sex. Individual conduct can affect health by causing health conditions such as lack of exercise with overeating or smoking that need health attention. Social determinant's recent emphasis on health shows that there is a correlation of populations in terms of fitness, for instance, a healthier populace with the availability of adequate healthy foods and housing, a safe community, a stable economy, and education (Northridge et al. 2020). In terms of social needs, individuals who unmeet them than those able to meet their needs are more likely to repeat no show for medical appointments, have poor control in cholesterol and glycemic, and frequently use emergency departments. A geographical area lacking care causes people not to access health-care, especially in rural regions because of insufficient supply of unique providers or because of other issues such as lack of insurance, therefore not receiving access. People living in poverty, assuming the services are available, have barriers such as inadequate transportation impeding access to care. Either individuals in these areas lack cars and other transport alternatives or because of prohibitive costs of shipment and excessive travel time. Health care providers deter the use of the services because of the level of urbanization and poverty.
Recent Efforts to Improve the Situation
The utilization of health care can be appropriate or inappropriate. People utilize it to gain information about their prognosis and health status, maintain or improve function, and cure diseases or injury. Over the past few decades, the system for health care delivery has undertaken significant changes. Changes occurred to facilities of care and patterns with new, improved imaging machinery, procedures, devices, tests, and drugs (McCullough & Curwick, 2020). The development of minimally invasive or noninvasive techniques and improvements in analgesia and anesthesia has influenced the growth of ambulatory surgery. Varieties of new sites of care can treat several previously untreatable situations with the availability of new and improved procedures while being less invasive even in physicians' offices for rural areas. There is increased utilization of new drugs and types of equipment to the vast regions that can lengthen or cure the course of a disease such as the recent creation of scanning machines. A blend of technologies has become useful for many types of cancers with combined chemotherapy and drug combinations that are free now in use to treat HIV/AIDS to rural areas. Healthcare has become more accessible as their equipment is becoming more transportable with technologies that are less expensive and easier to use. There is a reduction of recovery time procedure since ambulatory surgery centers can receive from institutional settings and hospitals the more sophisticated technologies even to patients' homes.
The diffusion of new technologies has decreased the length of hospitalization and has continuously helped access health-care (Winkler et al. 2020). The need for care determines access to health-care by whether people need or want to obtain care. With utilization, health care quality has been improved to achieve a favorable outcome with the high need for services to diverse inhabitants. All over the state, the medical field is continually trying to define the effective use of telehealth. The home-based program parents with demonstration have been able to use telehealth technology to increase school readiness by promoting child screening and health care while preventing child maltreatment (Traube et al. 2020). The availability of health-care services is newer and improved; however, to all people in the United States does not mean equal accessibility. For instance, there is less access to ambulatory care for the poor and disabled people who are more likely to practice emergency departments (EDs) that are not easily accessible in rural areas.
Recommendation
There is a need in the future to focus on the primary care workforce with the effort to deploy and distribute better geographically health-care for ease of access. A move to long-term and palliative care and oral health from clinical preventative services in more impoverished areas will ensure complete continuum access to care. There will be better contact since there is access to a similar team or person for health-care services familiar with the history of the patient. Through impeccable assessment and early identification, patients living with poverty moreover associated with life-threatening illnesses will be able to access the quality of life through relief and prevention of suffering from palliative care. Disparities address would also help access to health-care that can occur in many dimensions, such as gender, socioeconomic status, age, location, race, and ethnicity. The population would become more diverse for access to health-care and limit unnecessary costs for overall gain in quality of care and health. There will be an assessment of the differences between access, use, and insurance coverage for health-care access by broadly improving population health. Increased awareness can strengthen the relationship of patient-provider in health care among the public with health plans.
Poverty and the level of urbanization are two factors that affect access to health-care services. Future efforts require culturally competent care for diverse inhabitants in the health care delivery system. Specific populations, such as people living in poverty, need differential utilization and use of health services. The ability to access health-care significant factors is the need for care and if it is available, affordable, and convenient for the population relating to the geographical area of residence and poverty. Because of provider discrimination, the more inadequate people hinder access to the needed health care and exhibit behaviors such as drug use with overall worse health status. There is a need in the future to have equal access to health-care by considering all populations as one family and taking more care for the vulnerable.
