Healthcare Reform
Healthcare Reform
This paper will relate my attitude towards other health professionals, based on my understanding that healthcare reform includes not only insuring more Americans but changing the way we deliver services and think about health. It will also identify the knowledge/insights that will be most useful in moving healthcare reform forward.
Attitude towards Other Health Professionals
It is not easy to describe one’s attitude towards other healthcare professionals because it is an integrated multidisciplinary problem. So, one should adjust their attitude towards the way nursing administers care, to be more cost effective by concentrating on prevention of chronic illnesses through patient education and collaborating with other disciplines to reduce duplication of services. Having negative attitudes and blaming top executives of the insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, hospital executives, family-practice physicians, medical specialists, powerful interest groups and our government for this country’s expensive and inefficient healthcare delivery system will not benefit anyone. There are a multitude of problems in healthcare availability, access and affordability, not to mention our aging population, faulty prenatal care, overall poor health status, increases in chronic diseases, abuse and diversion of drugs, large numbers of uninsured and underinsured, improper patient use of hospital emergency room facilities and lack of adequate attention to long-term care and end-of life initiatives (Stevens, 2008).
According to Dr. Mary Wakefield (Laureate Education, 2004), public health policy is the authoritative decision that influences healthcare of large populations, which in turn directly influences what nurses can do. Since the majority of healthcare costs spent in this country come from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government, as the payer, utilizes healthcare reforms to contain the cost. Subsequently, private
This paper will relate my attitude towards other health professionals, based on my understanding that healthcare reform includes not only insuring more Americans but changing the way we deliver services and think about health. It will also identify the knowledge/insights that will be most useful in moving healthcare reform forward.
Attitude towards Other Health Professionals
It is not easy to describe one’s attitude towards other healthcare professionals because it is an integrated multidisciplinary problem. So, one should adjust their attitude towards the way nursing administers care, to be more cost effective by concentrating on prevention of chronic illnesses through patient education and collaborating with other disciplines to reduce duplication of services. Having negative attitudes and blaming top executives of the insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, hospital executives, family-practice physicians, medical specialists, powerful interest groups and our government for this country’s expensive and inefficient healthcare delivery system will not benefit anyone. There are a multitude of problems in healthcare availability, access and affordability, not to mention our aging population, faulty prenatal care, overall poor health status, increases in chronic diseases, abuse and diversion of drugs, large numbers of uninsured and underinsured, improper patient use of hospital emergency room facilities and lack of adequate attention to long-term care and end-of life initiatives (Stevens, 2008).
According to Dr. Mary Wakefield (Laureate Education, 2004), public health policy is the authoritative decision that influences healthcare of large populations, which in turn directly influences what nurses can do. Since the majority of healthcare costs spent in this country come from public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government, as the payer, utilizes healthcare reforms to contain the cost. Subsequently, private
References: Foley, M. (2007). Lobbying Policymakers: Individual and collective strategies. In D. J. Mason, J. K. Leavitt, & M. W. Chaffee (Eds.), Policy & politics in nursing and health care (5th ed.) (p.758). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier. Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2004). Understanding healthcare systems. (Video recording). (Available from Laureate Education, Inc. 12975 Coral Tree Place, Los Angeles, CA 90066-7020). Stevens, T. (2008, August 14). Healthcare reform: Not just déjà vu all over again. The State Journal. Retrieved on December 18, 2008 from www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=42541&catid=159