Historical And Socio-Cultural Factors Influencing Australia's Healthcare System

Australia’s healthcare system has been affected by a variety of historical, political and socio-cultural factors. Healthcare is described as especially trained and licenced professionals who work to “maintain or restore physical, mental or emotional well-being” (Merriam-Webster, 2017). With that in mind this essay identifies a historical influence, specifically biomedical approach, and a cultural influence, such as cultural competency and describes how each have shaped Australia’s healthcare system. The impact that biomedical approach, which originated from a germ theory of disease put together by Louis Pasteur (Johnson, 2012), has had on Australia’s healthcare system is the first major influence that this essay seeks to describe and identify.
As is stated by Taralgon College (2012), biomedical approaches rely on the use of technology heavily, in order to treat and diagnose diseases. On top of this it also only starts to deal with the disease once it has been identified. It had a drastic impact on the medical field, resulting in the introduction of computers into medical centres, which allowed for easier information storage such as patient details and disease symptoms. However, the medical field is still described as lacking in its’ technological advances even with the large advances in the last thirty years it still lags behind every other global sector (Shortliffe & Marsden, 2014). Biomedical approaches have been altering and growing over the years resulting in mass improvements in fields of medicine such as medical science, technology as well as an increase in the number of cures and treatments respectively (jkonoroth, 2013). This can be seen in the large amount of vaccinations available at Medicare centres today. A good example of this influencing today’s culture can be seen in the World Health Organisation’s successful attempt
A study conducted by authors of the International Journal for Quality in Heath Care found five interventions and evaluations aiming to increase cultural competency for Australian Indigenous individuals and within these it was identified that the main strategies were education and training of the health workforce, culturally specific health programs, and recruitment of an Indigenous health workforce. This set of strategies resulted in an improvement in health professional confidence and increased Indigenous patient satisfaction with healthcare access (Clifford et al, 2015). A study conducted on a group of nursing students following the competition of an Indigenous health subject was designed in order to collect the group’s idea of the healthcare and its issues regarding the Indigenous people of Australia. The subject was designed in order for the students in order to develop and awareness on this. The study found that there was a large increase in the amount of attitudinal change towards indigenous Australians’ following the class with a large