Discuss health care delivery and health care policies and the way in which the complex issues surrounding health care can be influenced by the adult-gerontology nurse practitioner
Health care delivery and health care policies are important to the nursing industry and to patients who access health care. For many persons, health literacy is vital to the overall outcome of health care practices. Without health literacy, health care persons will be unable to provide suitable care for in preventive services. Arguably, preventive services are important and they provide patients with better health as a reduced cost. In order to promote good health among citizens, it is important that the public health services promote the ideals of health literacy at all levels of the society.
Health literacy is the extent to which persons have the ability to garner, share, process and comprehend the basic information on health and health practices and within the different health services. This knowledge will help persons to make informed decisions about their health. Persons in the society are cognizant of their health needs, but the level of understanding differs greatly according to the specific person. The capacity and skills of a person to understand health literacy depends largely on the skills that are use to decide on the potential or ability to understand a specific health situations.
The common belief among the average citizen is that health care should be left to health care professionals, but health literacy can be learnt by just about any citizens and this knowledge can be applied to one’s knowledge and decision regarding health care. The harsh reality is that persons who seek information about health in any form must be familiar with health literacy skills. These skills are important as they help persons to find information; understand the concept and the benefits of the service and information that they acquire regarding health, and be better able to communicate personal preferences and needs for specific services. Additionally, health care literacy helps persons to better comprehend the different choices that they have to make and that there are consequences to these choices that will best suit personal preferences and needs.
Health care literacy skills are also important to persons who provide health care within the public and private health care sectors. These persons are not above knowing information that will help to communicate effectively on health related matters, recognize the need to provide accurate information and services to patients and recognize that different process and information applies to different persons.
There are different types of health literacy skill practices that are integral to everyone. The organizational health literacy reflects the ways in which professionals can help persons to find, assess, understand and use the health information in the most practical way in order to remove the barriers in health services. Organizations must make the move to help persons and their communities to improve on health literacy as this is important to the development of the society.
Strategies that can be implemented by adult – gerontology acute care NP to improve health care delivery and/or influence health care policy
Adult - Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPC NP) prepares nurses to be able to prepare and provide wide-ranging, patient-centered, quality care to the entire spectrum of adults, including young adults, adults, and the elderly. These nurse practitioners use strategies such a new and pertinent knowledge in the field to offer quality of life care through the use of extensive previous knowledge of the wellness and illness of the persons and their families in the health care system. In addition, persons trained in this field are responsible for providing direct services in health care which will influence the way patients are treated as the most important part of the process. This strategy allows for the holistic development of the patients mind and health. These nurse practitioners change the type of care that the health system offers to the elderly in the society as the services of these practitioners depend largely on the evidence based on health literacy that can help to improve the quality of the care and services that adults receive. This approach will change the way that adults are treated as the improvements in health care should applied to patients as soon as the health care worker becomes privy to the information. Of course many nurses and nurse practitioners may not receive the same information at once, and this leaves one to revisit the challenges that health care workers and patients face when they are not privy to health care literacy.
Strategies that can be implemented by adult – gerontology acute care NP to influence health care policy
Persons who are a part of health care policies may find that their health care providers do not tell the patients of the clause and conditions of their health care contracts. Many elderly patients find that they only recognize the problems when they actually seek medical care. Adult-gerontology nurse practitioners can influence health care policy in the way they treat patients and inform their patients of their medical conditions based on their previous knowledge. The patients then can choose policies that will best serve their interests. This will cause a challenge for health providers who often earn profits when they do not have to pay claims to the elderly because of a minor clause in their contracts.
In addition, Mary D. Naylor and Ellen T. Kurtzman suggest that adult – gerontology acute care NP influence health care policy because they of the increased use of retail clinics which are generally staffed by these practitioners (Naylor & Kurtzman 2010). The research further point to the growth in the services of these retail clinics will impact the savings of private insurers because of the growing access to retail clinics. The adult gerontology acute care practitioners are trained in the field and are able to research the pertinent information that will help the patients to improve their understanding of their specific illnesses and in turn improve their health conditions.
Appraisal of the complex issues associated with health care cost and the implications to access to health care.
The health care costs in the United States are expensive for many persons and as such many persons are unable to afford the kind of health care that would suit their medical conditions. Based on the article “The Economic Case for Health Care Reform from the White House” (2016), “health care expenditures in the United States are currently about 18 percent of GDP, and this share is projected to rise sharply” in the future. With the instability in the global economy, the cost of health care continues to grow and it is expected to reach thirty-four percent in 2040. But not many persons will be fortunate to live to see 2040 even though their age standards would actually take them t o that period.
The reality is that the high cost of health care has successfully deterred many persons from seeking quality health care. Households that benefit from employer-sponsored health insurance are likely to experience a relatively smaller fraction of the overall compensation in their take – home pay and an even larger fraction will come as employer-provided health insurance (The Economic Case for Health Care Reform from the White House 2016). This means that the increase in health care will negatively impact the increases in health expenditures and the budget that the government sets for the country.
The problem will intensify if the health care costs continue to increase as nearly half of the present health care expenditure falls under the coverage of state, Federal, and local governments. This means that “Medicare and Medicaid spending (both Federal and state) will rise to nearly 15 percent of GDP in 2040” (The Economic Case for Health Care Reform from the White House 2016). A closer examination reveals that nearly one-quarter of that expenditure comes from the inevitable rise in age and other factors that are instrumental to the demographic effects. One significant of Adult - Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPC NP) is that they have been trained to administer a number of health related treatments that will help adults to reduce the cost of health care. These nurse practitioners will undoubtedly help to reduce the inefficiencies in the health care system based on the huge spending on health care.
One legal aspect that is associated with Acute Care Nurse Practitioner and the health care system is that the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (ACNP) helps to provide diagnoses and assessment of the patients and provide direct care. The legal challenge comes however through the fact that these nurses have an independent practice that helps them to provide the necessary for those who are in need of care. But, they face the legal challenge of setting up and establishing the independent practice because of the problems with the medical society and their goals of subvert the independent practice. In addition, the various insurance companies have attempted to boycott the independent practices, but the insurance laws of 1993 has forced insurance companies a number of states to accept that the Acute Care Nurse Practitioners nave the legal rights to be a part of the provider panels because these practices also provide primary care (Plager & Conger 2006).
One of the most common ethical considerations for these practitioners is protecting the rights of the patients, Many patients are not aware of a number of rights that they have and they have become victims of the health care system. One such right is the right to refuse treatment. In this stage of the life cycle many families are not concerned with the feelings and emotions of the elderly and therefore, they opt to provide the cheapest and most affordable health care packages for their families. Acute Care Nurse Practitioners help the patients to assess all the medical options that are available and to choose the best option for those who are sick.
Description of the adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner
The ACNP develops in nurses the ability to see the elderly as valuable to the society and to offer care. As such the nurses must be caring for these elderly can be overbearing and even difficult to handle at times. Many of these persons will give up on their lives, but the ACNP are equipped to provide care as a foundational value in the practice of nursing. In fact, nursing bodies have stipulated that caring is a fundamental part of the association and it work as nurses have been geared to embrace the prerequisite of the profession in becoming educated in the field and in understanding that caring is an abstract concept that includes a conscious effort to provide quality service to the patients.
These nurses are competent in the field because of the mandate that has increased the awareness and attention to caring for patients. ACNPs provide evidence based care for the patients and allows them to gather the appropriate knowledge on particular patients before treatment and this helps them to become effective in their fields. The program of study in the field includes strong emphasis on team work and collaborations, patient-centered care, quality improvements to safety and informatics and evidence-based practice (Rhodes, Morris & Lazenby 2011).
Communication is important as these nurses have been trained to talk to the patients about the quality care that is affordable to their specific needs. In addition, nurses must communicate the possible treatment for each patient and cannot assume that the patients will have previous knowledge of the best care for the specific health problem.
Nurses are also leaders and as leaders, they must be able to set high standards and enforce rules and ethical practices for the rest of the staff. The nurses also assume a leadership role when taking care of the more difficult patients. As such it is imperative that ACNPs assume the role of leaders and build on their skills that are important to maintaining the ability to think and act clearly especially in critical cases.
Professionalism is also important to the profession as it is important to assume a professional and personal role as leaders. In addition each ACNP face patients with different needs and different personalities and as human beings they are prone to respond in ways that will detract from the professional nature of their jobs and practice good ethical and moral acts that will allow for a high level of professionalism.
Works Cited
Naylor, M. & Kurtzman, E. (2010) The Role Of Nurse Practitioners In Reinventing Primary
Care, Retrieved from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/29/5/893.full 15 Mar 2016
Plager, K. & Conger. M. (2006) Advanced Practice Nursing: Constraints to Role Fulfillment.
The Internet Journal of Advanced Nursing Practice. 2006 Volume 9 Number 1.
Rhodes, M., Morris, A., Lazenby, R. (February 25, 2011) "Nursing at its Best: Competent and
Caring" OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 16 No. 2.
The Economic Case for Health Care Reform from the White House (2016)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/TheEconomicCaseforHealthCareReform/ 15 Mar 2016
