Descriptive epidemiology is used to evaluate trends in health and disease and to be able to make comparisons among the population and subgroups within countries; and to provide a basis for planning, provision, and evaluation of services.

As a health officer, you have been asked to collect information to characterize and summarize tuberculosis epidemic in your state.

Write a paper in which you do the following:

1. Discuss the pattern and distribution of the disease in the population of your state as well as subgroups within the state.
2. What recommendations would you make to your administrator based on your findings?
3. Describe the basic types of epidemiologic study designs that are used to test hypotheses, identify associations and establish causation.

Be sure you support essay with evidence from the literature.

Length: 2–3 pages, excluding title page and references.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Assessment and Grading: Your paper will be assessed based on the performance assessment rubric that is linked within the course. Review it before you begin working on the assignment.

Your work should also follow these Assignment Expectations.

  

1) Develop formulas or functions that calculate totals for the budgeted and actual encounters for June 2018, May 2018, and 2018 Year-to-Date (YTD) in the appropriate shaded cells of row 12.

2) Develop formulas or functions that calculate the variance between June 2018 budgeted and actual amounts in the appropriate shaded cells in Column D.

3) Develop formulas or functions that calculate totals for personnel expenses and non-personnel expenses in the appropriate shaded cells in rows 17 and 24. 

4) Develop formulas or functions that calculate totals for health center expenses and their variances in the shaded cells in B25 through G25.

 Respond to at least two of your colleagues* by either supporting or respectfully challenging their explanation on whether there is an evidence base to support the proposed health policy they described.

  

Introduction

The demand for healthcare and the shortage of providers to offer this care, especially in geographically and economically challenged populations, has put a strain on healthcare availability. The Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health (CONNECT) Act of 2019 looks to promote access through increased use of telehealth. 

What It Means

Currently, telehealth is limited by geography, billing and reimbursement, and provider restrictions. The CONNECT bill HR 4932, proposes removal of some or all of these stipulations to expand access to care. Specifically, the bill targets Medicare restrictions and lack of coverage to improve access to the elderly and disabled (Wicklund, 2019). 

The Evidence

The evidence to support telehealth expansion has been proven. As discussed by Totten et al., (2016) numerous studies have shown an increase in positive outcomes regarding patient/provider communication, education, and the management of chronic health conditions. Passing of this bill could provide a multitude of benefits to involved parties. 

First and foremost, it would improve access to care for those limited by age, disability, geography, or finances. Improved access to care promotes health prevention and decreases more costly care due to complications associated with delay of treatment. The expansion of telehealth could also reduce the strain placed on providers by the shortage. The bill looks to permit telehealth use by more providers and remove some of the travel and point of origin restrictions. Greater use of telehealth would also encourage better insurance coverage and reimbursement (H.R. 4932, 2019).

Conclusion

With all the changes in healthcare and the concerns over cost and accessibility, the need for legislation to address these issues cannot be ignored. The promotion of telehealth and removal of current restrictions could solve many of these dilemmas. As healthcare providers, we can continue to conduct the research and provide the evidence needed to advocate for legislative change to improve healthcare. 

 Research the role of physical activity in disease prevention or coping with the disease once it is acquired. Choose arthritis or diabetes. 

Discuss your topic, how the disease is acquired (if known) and find a way to use the national statistics within the paper.

Include 3 peer reviewed journal articles/research from credible sources to use for your research paper. (APA intext citations).  In addition, please find 2 national statistics that relate to your topic of choice.

Some examples of peer-reviewed research articles include the following:

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Journal of Aging and Physical Activity

Journal of Nutrition

Statistics sites:

www.cdc.org

http://www.nih.gov/

http://www.acsm.org/

Attached is an example 

Case Study: A 65-year-old woman was just been diagnosed with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was informed of this diagnosis in her primary care physician’s office. She leaves her physician’s office and goes home to review all of her tests and lab results with her family. She goes home and logs into her PHR. She is only able to pull up a portion of her test results. She calls her physician’s office with this concern. The office staff discussed that she had part of her lab work completed at a lab not connected to the organization, part was completed at the emergency room, and part was completed in the lab that is part of the doctor’s office organization.

The above scenario might be a scenario that you have commonly worked with in clinical practice. For many reasons, patients often receive healthcare from multiple organizations that might have different systems.

As you review this scenario, reflect and answer these questions for this discussion.