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Outpatient care-sensitive conditions are preventable physiological disorders that can be managed through outpatient care, including regular doctor visits and treatments. Chronic and acute illnesses can be treated outside of hospitals, and high admission rates suggest a need for improved community health care, especially for low-income and rural populations.
The term “outpatient care-sensitive conditions” is a category of physiological disorders whose serious conditions are considered preventable through medications, home care, and a healthy lifestyle. In this way, the occurrence and recurrence of hospitalizations and emergency admissions can also be prevented. There are over 20 disorders that can be classified under this condition, some of which are cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Other conditions include asthma, chronic urinary tract infections, and gastroenteritis.
Conditions sensitive to outpatient care are also called outpatient-sensitive because they can also be prevented and managed through “outpatient care,” which refers to any outpatient treatment or doctor visits. In its simplest form, this can be regular consultations with a doctor, but it can also include biopsies, blood tests, and x-rays. Dental procedures and rehabilitation visits, such as after an episode of heart failure, are also classified under outpatient care. The focus of these services is the overall health and well-being not only for people with conditions sensitive to outpatient care, but for every single individual in a community.
Many illnesses considered conditions sensitive to outpatient care are chronic, meaning that the patient has experienced or will experience long-term illness, perhaps for the rest of their life. They can also be acute or severe. In addition to being managed, they can also be treated outside the hospital. One example is juvenile or type 1 diabetes, where patients will need to be permanently insulin dependent. To treat dangerously high or low blood sugar levels that can lead to coma, patients can self-administer insulin shots or consume a few tables of glucose, respectively.
Hospitalization rates for conditions sensitive to outpatient care vary by country or region. For example, admission rates for hypertensive patients in the United States increased by 26% in 2003, while diabetes had the highest admission rate in New South Wales, Australia in 2008. These statistics are very important especially for the government because they determine whether the population has access to outpatient care, whether they have sufficient resources to lead a healthier lifestyle or whether the quality of health care is satisfactory. In general, the high admission rates of those with conditions sensitive to ambulatory care suggest that improvements should be made in providing community health care, especially to those who are low-income, financially dependent, or located in rural areas. One way to provide such health services is to establish free clinics or health centers in the locality.
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