Healthcare Access and Quality
Healthcare access and quality is the ability to access timely health services for the best health results possible. The key components of healthcare are:
Healthcare coverage
Convenience and timeliness of care
Availability of the healthcare workforce
When a person can access quality, affordable routine care, health is positively influenced. Data around insurance, providers, quality of life, and health outcomes helps to show the quality and ease of reaching healthcare services.
Historical Spotlight on Health
Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially serious infectious disease that usually affects the lungs. It was once the leading cause of death in the United States and Europe in the 1800s. As germ theory developed in the late 19th century, it became standard of practice to isolate patients to prevent the spread of the disease. Sanatoriums were specialized hospitals deliberately built away from towns and cities, where patients would stay for months at a time.¹
Rock County had a Sanatorium called Pinehurst Sanatorium (Rock County’s Hospital for the Treatment of Tuberculosis). It had room for 60-70 patients and the average length of stay was 10.3 months.²
TB can be identified through x-rays, and Rock County Public Health held periodic health clinics to check county residents for the disease. Once antibiotics came into use during World War II and other treatment options progressed, home treatment of tuberculosis became more practical. Pinehurst transitioned to an outpatient TB clinic in the early 1970s, and it shut down after 1983. Pinehurst once stood where the current Rock County Jail and Sheriff’s Department Complex now resides.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, History of World TB Day