Addressing Healthcare Equity and Age-Inclusivity
As the world's population ages, healthcare equity issues have become increasingly pressing.
The healthcare industry is grappling with several challenges related to access, affordability, and quality of care for seniors. One potential solution to these issues is partnering with a virtual senior community, such as SecureSeniorConnections. In this blog post, we will explore how virtual senior communities impact healthcare equity issues and what benefits they can bring to seniors.
Healthcare Equity Issues for Seniors:
Before diving into the benefits of virtual senior communities, let's first examine some of the healthcare equity issues seniors face. These issues can include:
Loneliness and social isolation: Older adults, aged between 50-80, are at an increased risk for loneliness and social isolation because they are more likely to live alone, face the loss of family or friends, or deal with an illness. Loneliness and isolation have proven an increased risk of premature death or illness according to the CDC.
Affordability: Healthcare costs can be a significant burden for seniors, particularly for those on fixed incomes. Many seniors are forced to choose between paying for healthcare and other essential expenses like housing and food. With that being said, many need help to afford to pay membership fees for a virtual community.
Quality of Care: Seniors may also face challenges in receiving high-quality healthcare. They may be more likely to experience medical errors or misdiagnoses, and they may not receive the personalized care they need to manage complex health conditions. discussing the issues of social isolation and loneliness may not be
Being age-inclusive means closing the healthcare equity gap for the older adult population. One solution does not fit all. Implementing the appropriate strategies for disease, illness, and disability prevention, and healthy aging for aging Americans. Providing access to educational resources for diet and physical activities concerning various religions, ethnicities, and cultural sensitivities, is a great first step. There are many programs both virtual and in-person that help serve the aging population, providing them with additional resources and a sense of community.
According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), being age-inclusive means practicing the “4 Ms:”
What Matters. It aligns care with an older adult’s specific health outcome goals and preferences across settings of care, including end-of-life care.
Medication. The system uses medication that doesn’t interfere with what matters most to the older adult, such as mobility and cognitive skills.
Mentation. It focuses on preventing, identifying, treating, and managing dementia, depression, and delirium across healthcare settings.
Mobility. The system ensures that older adults can move about safely and function so they can do what matters.
-Forbes Health
How SecureSeniorConnections® Can Help:
Virtual senior communities offer a potential solution to many of these healthcare equity issues. Here are a few ways that SSC makes a difference:
Social Connection: Our virtual community for older adults helps seniors stay socially connected, which is essential for their overall health and well-being. Many seniors experience social isolation, which can lead to depression, anxiety, and other health problems. By providing virtual social activities and events, virtual senior communities can help seniors stay connected to their peers and maintain a sense of community, even if they cannot leave their homes.
Healthcare Benefit: Virtual senior communities can also help improve member retention by partnering with SSC and offering access to our platform as an added membership benefit. By enhancing the member experience, you improve your member retention, lower member loneliness scores, and help improve the overall health of your members.
Personalized Care: Virtual senior communities can help ensure that seniors receive access to interest groups, educational, and fitness programs. Our virtual live events, not only provide help our members build and maintain a sense of community but it keeps them active, educated, and entertained.
Building and maintaining meaningful relationships with others reduces the risks of isolation and loneliness, and it can help older adults live longer. Socializing and having a sense of community are important for people of all ages. As humans, we are meant to be social. Plenty of research has concluded that social interaction helps relieve stress, and even reduces risks of cognitive decline and dementia. When you think about it when people are healthy, they are happy, and that goes hand-in-hand with the member experience here and across healthcare plans. Supplying access to a virtual community that is dedicated to reducing social isolation for the older adult population, provides an added level of support for the emotional, mental, and physical well-being of older adults and senior members.
Virtual senior communities continuously make a significant impact on healthcare equity issues for seniors. By reducing healthcare costs, providing personalized care, and fostering social connections, the SecureSeniorConnections® virtual community can help ensure that older adults receive the high-quality community and wellness support they deserve. Here at SSC, we recognize that it is important that we continue to explore innovative solutions like virtual community building to address the healthcare needs of our aging population.
Works cited and further reading:
Goal F: Understand health disparities related to aging and develop strategies to improve the health status of older adults in diverse populations. National Institute of Aging. https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/aging-strategic-directions-research/goal-health-disparities-adults
Incorporating Health Equity Into An Initiative To Transform Care For Older Adults. Health Affairs. Mitchell, Faith. January 14, 2021. https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210107.955292/
The Age-Friendly Movement And How It Supports Older Adults. Forbes Health. Hipp, Deb. Shega, Joseph M.D. January 27, 2023.
https://www.forbes.com/health/senior-living/age-friendly-movement/