Exam (elaborations) NR 506 Week 5 TD

Exam (elaborations) NR 506 Week 5 TD Select two drivers (for example quality, cost, and access) of high performance healthcare systems and apply it to your current work situation. The application could demonstrate the presence of the driver in a positive manner or it could acknowledge the presence of a concern. The drivers of healthcare include access to care, the cost of care, and the quality of care. Access refers to one being able to obtain quality yet affordable care. Access to care includes its accessibility in geographical terms and in affordability. The cost of healthcare is probably the biggest healthcare issue in America today. Quality of care is an issue all healthcare providers have or do experience. Quality of care includes providing adequate interventions to ensure patient’s issues are addressed appropriately and safely (CCN, 2016). It seems as if every president and every person running for president tries to reform healthcare. Unfortunately, accessibility to affordable healthcare has become worse and worse over the years. John McCain had some good ideas back when he ran against Barak Obama. In an article John McCain wrote (2008), he describes what he would do for healthcare if he became president. In regards to affordability, McCain (2008), said he would give all Americans a refundable tax credit that could be used specifically for health insurance. In regards to access, McCain said he would increase competition by opening the market to competition nationwide; he explained that this would alleviate state regulations that do not allow for competition and therefore increase the price of insurance (2008). For quality, big insurance companies influence care delivered by dictating what medical professionals have to do in order to get paid. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are basically forced into ordering and performing tests that are unnecessary and repetitive just to cover themselves and prevent lawsuits in this sue happy world we live in. This impedes a doctor’s ability to truly care for each individual patients. McCain wanted to reform Medicare and Medicaid, making it so they pay for outcomes, not the number of tests or procedures done (McCain, 2008). By no way is McCain’s plan perfect but I do believe our healthcare system would not be in such a disarray had he won. Unfortunately, I have seen the effect of The Affordable Care Act personally and professionally. I have Obamacare and it is anything but affordable. As an ICU nurse, one example of how the lack of access and cost to quality care is evident but the increase in DKA patients. These patients are labeled as non-compliant however, when you are able to speak to them, you realize the issue is they cannot see their doctor or afford their medicine. In the ICU, quality of care is not lost but I believe because of the lack of access to it outside, we are seeing an increase of patients that could have avoided the hospital had then been able to be managed correctly outside the hospital. I do not think there will ever be a perfect plan to solve all the issues but the current situation is not working. This study source was downloaded by from CourseH on :57:54 GMT -05:00 This study resource was shared via CourseH NR 506 Week 5 TD McCain, J. (2008). Making access to quality and affordable health care a reality for every American. Jama-Journal of The American Medical Association, 300(16), 1925- 1926. INSTRUCTOR: Thank you for the post and positive statement at the end of your discussion about nurses participating in the development of healthcare systems and healthcare policies. I agree with you wholeheartedly! The CMS rule that you mention does sound like it is helping with one cost issue in healthcare. What are your thoughts as a utilization management nurse about their rule about 30 day readmissions? This is a real issue with many older folks with chronic healthcare issues and sometimes it is not their fault when they need to go back into the hospital? Hi Dr. H, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program because hospital readmissions were cost them a lot of money. The program made it so that they could penalize hospitals based on patients that were readmitted within thirty days. When the program first began it was directed towards heart failure patients, acute myocardial infarctions, and pneumonia patients, the program insinuated that readmission was a poor reflection of the care the patients received (Saunders et al., 2015). As nurses I think a lot of us see this as just another way for CMS to dictate care and make more money. Whether that statement is true or not, I do think the initiative lead to new ideas on how to care for these patients once they are discharged from the hospital. This did get me thinking about your question though. What about the patients we cannot control, such as some cancer patients. According to the study by Saunders et al. (2015), the majority of cancer patient readmissions are from a progression of the cancer, a new diagnosis, and complications related to procedures. After reading the article, there are definitely some cases that readmission could have been avoided. There are also those cases where readmission was unavoidable and care was not a limiting factor. I am sure CMS made this rule across the board because it would be too much work to address readmissions individually. However, it is not fair to penalize hospitals when readmission really was unavoidable. Penalizing hospitals can