Grand Canyon University

Grand Canyon University
Reflection Paper
Suneeta Sharma
As is evidence of the various interventions by the government to make changes in the health care sector, one of the most appreciated efforts relates to the nursing recommendations. The refinement of the Medicaid has had some rough patches, but the recommendations have not received as much criticism. In the past, nurses have always learned their skills through trial and error (Thefutureofnursing.org, 2014). This is a method that has cost the country gross loss of life and incompetence from the nursing fraternity (Wood, 2014). However, the situation is slowly changing as most of the registered nurses in the country have their degrees, at the tune of around 45% of all practicing nurses.
Thesis Statement: the health sector is set to experience changes especially with the more nurses taking the initiative to sharpen their skills through continuous academic achievement
In the year 2010 in October, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report that coined the future of nursing: leading change advancing health (Nursingcenter.com, 2014). The major initiative which began in 2008 brought attention to eight recommendations that the nursing fraternity should stick by to improve health delivery in the country.
As a nurse, I have always had the passion of becoming the best I can with sharp skills that allow me to offer health care services of the highest quality to my patients. As such, it is also in my knowledge that to be the best nurse, I would have to constantly sharpen my skills through education. This means that I plan to continue learning throughout my career (Crowley, 2014).
At the moment, I am taking a degree in nursing and plant to advance in the future. According to the fourth recommendation, the population of registered nurses with baccalaureate degree should be increased to more than 80% by the year 2020. Given that I am already taking a degree program, this means that I fall within the 80% recommendation and increase the current 45% to a higher number (Wood, 2014). At the moment, there is a shortage of nurses and majority of those in the system only have certificates. This means that most of them will have to go back to school, otherwise they will be locked out. With a baccalaureate degree, I stand a chance to take advantage of all the career opportunities that may present themselves within the field. At the same time, I will have better skills at handling patients and delivering quality health care services.
IOM also made recommendation number five, in which they wanted the percentage of nurses with doctorate degrees increased by a factor two. At the same time, there was recommendation number, which recommended lifelong learning for the nurses (Thefutureofnursing.org, 2014). With close reference to my career goals of improving my skills and staying up to date on my skills, I feel that I perfectly ...