Nursing Care Delivery System
As the country focuses on the restructuring of the U.S. health care delivery system, nurses will continue to play an important role. It is expected that more and more nursing jobs will become available out in the community, and fewer will be available in acute care hospitals.
Write an informal presentation (500-700 words) to educate nurses about how the practice of nursing is expected to grow and change. Include the concepts of continuity or continuum of care, accountable care organizations (ACO), medical homes, and nurse-managed health clinics.
Share your presentation with nurse colleagues on your unit or department and ask them to offer their impressions of the anticipated changes to health care delivery and the new role of nurses in hospital settings, communities, clinics, and medical homes.
In 800-1,000 words summarize the feedback shared by three nurse colleagues and discuss whether their impressions are consistent with what you have researched about health reform.
A minimum of three scholarly references are required for this assignment.
While APA format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Cent
Evolving Practice of Nursing and Patient Care Delivery Models
Name
Institution
Date
How nursing practice is expected to grow and change.
The nursing profession has greatly transformed with numerous models of care delivery being initiated. Nurses are required to adjust to these new reforms to meet the changing health care demands. Nurse roles have expanded, requiring additional knowledge. Nurses form part of the health care team and are widely recognized for their care roles . However, some of these changes have been debated in several states in the US. Several stakeholders emphasize on the need to supervise nurses ,hence limiting their scope of practice. Nurses still face numerous challenges in adjusting to the health care process (Kuo et al, 2013).
Advanced technology has forced nurses to acquire additional skills to adjust to the new technological world. Information technology is widely used all corners of the health care sector from diagnosis, admission, prescription, and treatment. Advanced technology has aided the nursing practice as it provides real time data, helping nurses make more informed decisions about patient care (Auerbach et al., 2013). Patient records can easily be stored and retrieved easily at any point. Advanced technology promotes collaboration among several departments and health personnel. Care delivery is delivered by a multidisciplinary team including nurses (Auerbach et al., 2013).
Health care reforms positively impacted on service provision, that is why nurses need to use new approaches to promote continuity care. Nurses’ role includes ensuring smooth transition process in various aspects. Nurses advocate for continuity care that aims at improving patient health outcomes. To enhance patient health outcomes, nurses require additional skills to coordinate care services at various levels . Patients’ needs vary and are more complex, hence nurses need to go beyond their daily routine to follow up on patients and educate the patients' family (Christie et al., 2015). As part of health care reforms, accountability is the focus of delivering services. The Accountable care organization model requires nurses to improve care coordination. Accountable care organizations offer quality and seamless care services compared to the previously fragmented care delivery systems. In this process, nurses facilitate care services, including sharing of patient information to care, specialists, hence, nurses play a significant role within accountable care organization model (Christie et al., 2015).
Health care reforms have influenced patient and doctor interaction, medical care homes are among the new models that is meant to transform service delivery. Medical homes offer patient-centered services by qualified professional nurses. Medical homes are headed by nurses with advanced education and patient care decision is a collective process (Christie et al., 2015). The health care reforms are in line with the major recommendation by the institute of medicine that focuses on the need for nurses to be granted permission to practice based on their levels of training and education (Kuo et al, 2013).
With increased health care demands, health disparity is a worrying trend. Nurse managed clinics are among the new models of care that focus on the underserved population. Nurse managed clinics are meant to increase access to care for those in need of care services through community initiatives. The nurse-managed clinics are expected to more preventive services as compared to the traditional curative processes (Kuo et al, 2013). Nurses play important roles in reducing health care disparities and have taken over roles previously reserved for other health care professional. The expanded roles of nurses mean, nurses need to acquire additional education to be able to work independently (Kuo et al, 2013).
Conclusion
The nurse still faces several challenges when delivering care services, even though they are the main care providers and their role determines patient health outcomes. For nurses to fit within the ever-changing health care system, there is the need for policy change and a personal commitment for nurses to achieve universal health goals.
References
Auerbach, D. I., Chen, P. G., Friedberg, M. W., Reid, R., Lau, C., Buerhaus, P. I., & Mehrotra, A. (2013). Nurse-managed health centers and patient-centered medical homes could m...