Introduction
Health services comprise organizations and ancillary healthcare professionals who offer medical care to those who require it. These services are available to patients, families, and communities. This paper aims to compare and contrast some of the available health services.
Types of Healthcare Services
The various types of health care services include health promotion and maintenance, illness prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation and long-term care (Unfried, 2018). The services exist to make health care high-quality accessible, and patient-centered (Unfried, 2018). Unlike other individuals who mainly rely on their primary care physician for all health services, I am fortunate enough to be aware and have experience with various health services, which are diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation. For instance, a few years back I was diagnosed with gall stones. The diagnosis was made after an ultrasound and a computed tomography (CAT) scan. I was prescribed medication that cleared the gall stones.
The other case, i.e., a rehabilitation case, was that of my aunt. She was diagnosed with hypertension, hence was prescribed some daily medication. Regardless of the medication, she also takes other rehabilitative measures which include regular exercises. Although she monitors her blood pressure weekly at home using a sphygmomanometer, she periodically visits her physician for her medical check-up.
Based on the history I have had with the health services provided, I can satisfactorily conclude that diagnosis and treatment are more important than rehabilitation. This is because diagnosis provides crucial information that would provide a basis for clinical decisions (Croft et al., 2015). Treatment is also equally important as it helps to improve patient outcomes. On the other hand, rehabilitation is just but icing on the cake, since it is used to supplement treatment.
Conclusion
Not every individual will require each health service. Although some services are more critical than others, their overall objective is to ensure that illness is either cured or managed.
Reference
- Croft, P., Altman, D., Deeks, J., Dunn, K., Hay, A., LeResche, L.,…Timmis, A. (2015). The science of clinical practice: Disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about “what is likely to happen” should shape clinical practice. BMC Medicine, 13(20), 1-8.
- Unfried, A. (2018). Health services: Definition, types and providers. Web.