Evolving Practice of Nursing and Patient Care Delivery Models

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Question one: How the practice of nursing is expected to grow and change

The healthcare sector forms one of the most critical areas requiring total concentration when it comes to growth and implementation of changes. The governments through the ministry of healthcare and nursing professionals have tried to improve the quality of medical care offered in healthcare institutions in by introducing various innovations and changes. The nursing practice requires transformation through educating nurses on various concepts such as effective leadership, proper and timely delivery of care and the practice itself. The most effective concepts that nursing professionals have introduced to help improve the sector are the concepts of continuum care, accountable care organizations, medical homes, and nurse-managed health clinics. Nurses should possess knowledge of the above concepts in order to deliver quality healthcare services and promote growth and change in their organizations and the nation in general.

The role of continuity or continuum of care in promoting growth and change in the practice of nursing

According to Uijen, Schers, Schellevis and Bosch (2011), continuity or continuum of care is the process of involving both the patients and physicians in practice of healthcare management in order to achieve high-quality and cost-effective healthcare services. This practice mostly favors family medicine through assisting home-based patients increase their trust on physicians. The practice also makes family physicians more confident and effective in offering nursing care to their individual clients. Continuity of care acts as the most essential concept when it comes to the provision of quality primary care. Proper implementation of this concept not only accelerates growth in the healthcare sector but also makes patients more confident about their physicians. How can nurses practice continuity of care to encourage growth and promote changes in the practice of nursing?

Presence of accountable-care organizations

Accountability presents the main cause of success in any organization. Each employ in an organization must be accountable for his or her area of work in order to ensure growth and promote changes. The practice of nursing requires professionals to be accountable for their duties and responsibilities in order to offer the needed care and increase the quality of services. Increased and improved services encourage more customers to the organization who end up bringing more revenues that play a role in the growth of the industry. Most studies conducted to investigate the main problems affecting the growth of the practice of nursing reveal professional resistance as one of the main causes.

Medical homes and nurse-managed health clinics

One of the best places that nursing professionals can easily gain trust from patients and improve their services is in the medical homes or nurse-managed health clinics. They are location of medical homes in residential areas help many people who develop emergency medical problems seek quick attention. Nurses can promote growth and implement changes in the healthcare sector through such facilities by ensuring patients receive desired healthcare services. In addition, nurse-managed clinics can promote the practice of nursing through using the present technology such as implementation of home-based care, bedside manner, use of social communication channels to monitor patient’s progress while at home, and using advanced medical tools for diagnosis (Auerbach, Friedberg, Reid, Buerhaus, and Mehrotra, 2013).

Question two: Nurses’ impressions of the anticipated changes to health care delivery and the new role of nurses in hospital settings, communities, clinics and medical homes

A discussion with three nurse colleagues on the type of changes needed in the practice of nursing to promote growth of the sector revealed that they also demanded the above concepts. The nursing sector lags behind because nurses lack the needed skills and knowledge on how to provide quality care to patients and win their confidence. In addition, the world is transforming at a higher rate, and the practice of nursing should also change. Most nurses accepted the fact that the sector needs to implement new technologies in order to increase nursing hospital settings, enlighten the community, and improve home clinic settings.

Question three: the responses shared by three nurse colleagues

From the discussion, the nurses agreed that the practice of nursing requires major changes in terms of service delivery, a new role of nurses in hospital settings, education of modern healthcare service delivery techniques, and use of medical homes. All three nurses nurse colleagues held similar impressions to those researched in question one on how to make the practice of nursing grow and change.

Firstly, the area of the implementing the continuum of care in promoting changes in the nursing sector yielded a lot of debate. Nurses agree that a good patient-physician relationship plays a key role in ensuring quality delivery of healthcare services and increases trust between the two parties. The three nurse collogues agreed that all clinics and nursing homes should introduce new rules that assign each nurse specific patients. Nurses will be required to file weekly reports on the progress of their patients regardless of their geographical location. The program aims at ensuring all nurses take good care of patients and take responsibilities of patient’s wellness even after leaving the healthcare center.

Understanding of nursing care models plays an essential role in ensuring nurse’s practices and totally implements the practice of continuity. One of the best practices that a nurse can utilize involves following the models of continuity. These are chronological, geographical, interdisciplinary, and interpersonal. Implementation of these models occurs through making a proper follow-up of the patient and taking into account all changes, offering needed healthcare services despite the location, treating al diverse illnesses, and understanding the patient’s desires. This model would help nurses earn more trust from patients and promote growth of the practice of nursing (Uijen, Schers, Schellevis and Bosch, 2011).

Secondly, we discussed on the issue of accountability in the practice of nursing. The discussion revealed that most nurses never take into account their actions leading to most patients complaining about the services offered. The modern evolving nursing practices such as the use of technology to record nurses’ attendance and activities in clinics formed the best method of ensuring changes in the practice of nursing. On the other hand, through the Accountable Care Act (ACA) the healthcare industry offers new roles for nurses but the compensation offered makes them less productive. The research realized that the government should consider giving more attention to the practice of nursing and release more funds for nurse compensation and other improvement projects that might help the sector grow in the future.

The resistance of nursing professionals and general opposition to undertaking their responsibilities reduces chances of growth in the sector. All practicing nurses should learn to take accountability of their duties and ensure patients receive needed care at all times. Every nurse has a role of keeping the patient safe and interacting with their workplace to help promote patient care (American Nurses Association, 2010). A discussion with nurse colleagues disclosed that major changes in the education curricula for nurses are needed to ensure nurses meet patient needs (The 2013 Health Care Professionals Workforce Survey, 2013). Limited clinical training officers with the modern knowledge such as the use of current medical innovations, and lack of quality leadership management contribute to the slow growth and poor implementation of changes.

The team also discussed on the importance of Patient Care Delivery Models in promoting changes and encouraging in the practice of nursing. Medical homes and nurse-managed healthcare clinics were found out to be the most significance in taking care of the evolving practice of nursing. Nurses require more skills on how to carry out home-based nursing care practices to expand the sector and ensure every person receives the needed care irrespective of location. The use of care-the-patient-centered medical home and nurse-managed health center solve the problem of the shortage of primary care physicians resulting from the increased patient demand (Auerbach, Friedberg, Reid, Buerhaus, and Mehrotra, 2013).

One of the initiatives considered by the team was ensuring that all practicing nurses register with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010. PPACA ensures all nurses acquire the necessary knowledge and resources that promote quality care. The essentials of nursing contained in the act include knowledge of patient-centered care, family and community care, chronic disease management, wellness care, patient education, and management of patient information. Knowledge of these essentials would see the practice of nursing grow. In addition, many changes evolve to the healthcare delivery, medical homes, and the community (ANA Issue Brief, 2010).

On the other hand, the future of practice of nursing depends more on technology implementation. Most people have changed into using technology through the internet in conducting most operations. An effective collaboration between the information technology experts and nursing professionals would see the sector grow tremendously. The colleagues agreed that the practice of nursing needs to come up with restructured teams composed of technologists and nurses to facilitate expansion and use of IT applications. Some of the most significant IT applications suggested by the group are mobile workstations, remote biometric monitoring programs, electronic medical records, and use of computers to make reports and to manage for medical care programs.

References

American Nurses Association. (2010). Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (2nd Ed.).

Maryland: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

ANA Issue Brief. (2010). New Care Delivery Models in Health System Reform: Opportunities

For Nurses & their Patients. Retrieved from:

http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/Policy-Advocacy/Positions-and-Resolutions/Issue-Briefs/Care-Delivery-Models.pdf

Auerbach, D. I., Chen, P. G., Friedberg, M. W., Reid, R., Lau, C., Buerhaus, P. I. and Mehrotra,

A. Nurse-managed health centers and patient-centered medical homes could mitigate expected primary care physician shortage. Health Aff (Millwood), 32(11),1933-1941

The 2013 Health Care Professionals Workforce Survey. (2013). New York’s health care sector,

A changing, growing workforce. Retrieved from

http://www.hanys.org/workforce/survey/reports/2013_nursing_allied_workforce_survey_report.pdf

Uijen, A., Schers, H. J., Schellevis, F. G. and Bosch, M. (2011). How unique is continuity of

care? A review of continuity and related concepts. Journal of Family Practice. Retrieved from

http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/citmgr?gca=fampract%3Bcmr104v1