Community Monitoring in Health Resources for the Practitioner |
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Access
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The ability of an individual or a defined population to obtain or receive appropriate health care. This involves the availability of programmes, services, facilities and records. Access can be influenced by such factors as finances (insufficient monetary resources); geography (distance to providers); education (lack of knowledge of services available); appropriateness and acceptability of service to individuals and the population; and sociological factors (discrimination, language or cultural barriers).
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Accessibility
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Removal of the barriers to entering and receiving services or working within any health care setting.
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Accessibility of Health Services
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Aspects of the structure of health services or health facilities that enhance the ability of people to reach a health care practitioner, in terms of location, time, and ease of approach. (World Health Organisation)
Access to health services implies that individuals recognise and accept their need for services, consent to a role as service user, and acknowledge socially generated resources that they are willing to utilise. These processes of access are subject to social and cultural influences as well as environmental constraints. (http://hsr.sagepub.com/content/7/3/186.full.pdf) |
Accountability
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An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.
The concept of accountability contains three essential components: 1) the loci of accountability—different healthcare parties that can be held accountable or hold others accountable; 2) the domains of accountability—in health care, parties can be held accountable for as many as six activities: professional competence, legal and ethical conduct, financial performance, adequacy of access, public health promotion, and community benefit; and 3) the procedures of accountability, including formal and informal procedures for evaluating compliance with domains and for disseminating the evaluation and responses by the accountable parties. (http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=709376) |
Advocacy for Health
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A combination of individual and social actions designed to gain political commitment, policy support, social acceptance and systems support for a particular health goal or programme. Advocacy also has a role in creating awareness in the minds of the community regarding the health rights
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Advocate
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A person who acts on behalf of another, usually for a cause or plea.
To support or suggest an idea, development or way of doing something. |
After care
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Care provided to individuals after their release from institutional care.
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