Program Goal and Objectives
PROGRAM GOAL
The CHR Program
was implemented to improve the health knowledge, attitudes and practices
of Indian people by promoting, supporting, and assisting the I
H S in delivering a total health care program. The efforts
of CHR program staff have produced an American Indian and Alaska
Native health service delivery system, which provides for follow-up
and continued contact with the health care delivery system at the
community level, thereby meeting the most basic needs of the American
Indian and Alaska Native population.
The goal of the CHR Program is to address health care needs through
the provision of community-oriented primary care services, including
traditional Native concepts in multiple’ settings, utilizing
community-based, well-trained, medically-guided health care workers.
OBJECTIVES
- To provide curative, preventive, and rehabilitative services
in those areas of health care in which services would not otherwise
be available to the American Indian and Alaska Native people.
- To provide home health care services.
- To provide transportation within the local community to/from
an IHS or tribal hospital or clinic for routine, non-emergency
problems, to a patient without other means of transportation, when
necessary.
- To act as a liaison/advocate for the communities served by Federal,
State, and local agencies. The liaison/advocate motivates and assists
the agencies by clarifying the role of Native traditions, value
systems, and cultural beliefs, to meet the health care needs of
the communities, thereby reducing the potential for conflict and
misunderstanding regarding the health conditions of American Indian
and Alaska native people.
- To interpret languages, if necessary, when the community-based
language and the language used by other health care providers differ.
- To facilitate communications between community members and health
care’ providers, thereby enhancing accessibility and acceptability
of health care facilities. The CHRs assist IHS and non-IHS health
agencies to design and/or redesign services to ensure greater responsiveness
to the needs of American and Alaska Native communities.
- To provide and retain community-based health care providers to
meet reservation and community health care needs as part of their
community's health care system and to ensure that program training
and performance meet established national standards, as specified
in the Indian Health Manual, Indian Self-Determination Memorandum
(ISDM), 81-4, and Section 107 of P.L. 100-713, dated November 23,
1988.
- To develop annual program plans which address specific community
health care needs.
- To assess community health care resources, both IHS and non-IHS,
and to facilitate appropriate utilization of those resources.
- To ensure availability of appropriate IHS medical guidance to
CHR Programs.
- To ensure compliance with the requirements of a CHR data collection
plan.
- To provide and/or assist in demonstrations, conduct training
sessions and community meetings in the areas of safety, nutrition/dietetics,
environmental health, and in other areas of health concerns.
- To provide health care education and facilitate understanding
by using the Native language when appropriate, thereby fostering
greater cross-cultural understanding.
- To provide extensive health promotion/disease prevention information
and instruction in self-help services that address chronic health
problems.
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