Nursing Practice Growth and the Continuity of Care in Healthcare

Nursing Practice Growth and Change
Your Name
Your Institution of Affiliation
Introduction
It is no doubt that our world has made significant leaps in many aspects of our society. One of these aspects is healthcare and throughout the past decades, significant advancements and developments have been made in terms of the tools, methods, and techniques which are utilized in the practice. However, these advancements also necessitated a better understanding and delivery of better quality healthcare. The demand for a type of healthcare that is not only “cost-effective”, but is also dedicated to patient satisfaction has been one of the major the topics of many studies today. And since this need does not only affect the demand for better healthcare, but even polices and laws implemented by the state itself, this simply shows the severity of the matter. In line with this, it was stated the U.S. has been pushing forward a significant changes in the structure and delivery of healthcare. Since this restructuration offers a lot of other opportunities outside of the traditional healthcare provider which focuses on “fee-for-service medicine and treatment”, then it is expected that nurses would most likely thrive in local community services. As according to Christine Kovner, professor of geriatric nursing at New York University and co-director of the RN Work Project, “The percentage of experienced hospital nurses going into ‘community jobs’ will increase as the jobs in case management and ambulatory care are seen as more desirable” (Kovner, n.d. as cited by Japsen, 2015). In this article, I would be focusing on this “reform” and restructuration of the healthcare service in the U.S. Also, I would try to gauge the opinions of my colleagues relative to the new studies and researches that focus on the said phenomenon. Based on the studies, I believe that most of the opinions of my colleagues would also show the increase of job demands for nurses out in the community.
Continuity of Care and Changes in Healthcare
Despite the many events that took place in order for healthcare to be improved, most would say that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 was the policy that initiated the reform. Basically, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, aims at providing subsidies for “households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level” (HealthCare.gov, n.d.). As of now, the law has created significant changes not only in the insurance policies of each provider, but also in terms of the structure and delivery of health-care in the system. One of the change that it would bring is through the “continuity of care” in the sector. Continuity of care refers to the proper and most effective structure for a healthcare team, which is characterized by efficient communication systems and report management, in order to provide the patient’s need in a timelier manner. More specifically, this change is due to an increase in “integration” and “collaboration”, with which the ACA proponents state. This increase, according to them, is to be able to accommodate the ever increasing number of Medicare patients in hospitals as...