Mobile Health ClinicsMobile health clinics are prone to obsoleteness and lack of new facilities such as upgraded electrical generators and cabling network to enable smooth running of operations. Their presence in deep rural areas subjects them to problems due to lack of supportive infrastructure. Some of the beneficiaries of MMC cannot afford to pay for certain services due to their poverty level hence constraining sources of funds. Inaccessibility to some areas is also a major challenge in responding to emergencies that require instant reactions. accessibility to medical experts that may be of help is more difficult while offering services in remote areas, this leads to offering of services that are of help only on short term durations as opposed to offering a total solution for the problem at hand.
Those living in poverty are not to access reliable and affordable modes of transportation to access the services. The inaccessibility of some areas translates to shortage of health professionals; some companies have offered solutions by providing grants such as the GlaxoSmithKline to support transportation of services.
Due to the mobility of the clinics, difficulties exist in determination of the patient’s health history that may be of help in offering treatment.Supporting the health care providers in mobile clinic is faced with various challenges such as:Lack of capabilities to design an environment that is in line with and one that offer support to clinical processes. Enough space is not available for equipment such as facilities to enable provision of high quality electrical power. The clinics also find it very hard to comply with some regulatory standards such as privacy and security of health information of persons due to the nature of their activities. Various environmental factors call for unique clinical settings which is difficult to comply with, a situation that poses many difficulties to
Lack of expertise to provide essential services for health care personnel, in this case the hospital, for the period following the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act such as HIPAA, federal law. The clinics may be unable to provide services needed and would like to further develop a solution. As a result of these and some other difficulties of the healthcare system, it is necessary to implement additional measures including:More stringent security protocols from the public health authorities for medical and radiological facilities. The public health authorities should ensure that, for reasons already described and in relation to this issue, there are adequate standards to protect patients during medical and radiological work to ensure the safety of the patients. A minimum of three security procedures, such as those to ensure the safety of health workers on special teams when receiving medical care, should be used for all such works. This would ensure that the patients do not fall within the risks of the work but are safe to operate. This would also be a good approach to improve security, for instance by allowing all other personnel to continue their work while using the medical equipment and services.Security protocols, such as those given in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also need to be adopted to address the problem of public health professionals having a lack of knowledge about HIPAA, the criminal aspects and privacy of health data to prevent these crimes. It can be concluded that patients are at risk of violating the confidentiality, privacy and safety of their medical devices, so such protocols must be adopted in order to strengthen the security capabilities.In addition, it may require that security measures be implemented for certain patient records which relate to the patients themselves. Although the law requires that the hospitals provide health care for the patients, it has been shown that the following health care providers should not have any capacity to offer the patients that are not covered by HIPAA: The following health care providers (for a list of all facilities located in the U.S., click here):
Lack of knowledge about the patients may be difficult to meet in some cases where there is no information obtained that might reveal the specific location of medical records of patients. It also can be difficult to make accurate hospital informed of the activities and the reasons for certain activities, so the health care providers involved need to have accurate information.
Health care providers which may lack or want to provide HIPAA information and which are not responsible for ensuring it to the patients are sometimes referred to as “third parties”, for example some medical services. It also may require an understanding between health care providers and the patient relating to these services and the providers who do these services.
The following may be very difficult to fulfill in the past.
In contrast to health care providers, the providers in other locations, in their own hospitals, also sometimes need financial assistance, for example from the federal government, such as a mortgage loan or a business loan.
Lack of professional quality personnel to protect patients could be a problem for medical care to other providers, such as for care units that are owned by patients, hospital systems, health plan associations, public health offices or other non-profits.
Additional requirements which may be needed:More stringent information sharing and verification requirements for medical professionals as