Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues

Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
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Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
The delivery of quality, affordable, optimal, and accessible care is often encapsulated in the overall goals of healthcare systems. However, due to limited resources, the overall goals in healthcare are not fully achieved. Healthcare needs tend to compete with limited resources. Healthcare leaders, such as nurses, often find themselves at crossroads as they thrive on matching competing for healthcare needs amidst limited-resource settings. This paper will discuss healthcare versus quality. Many often could argue that limited resources are often linked to low-quality healthcare delivery. Healthcare costs versus quality is a critical stressor in healthcare delivery. Others believe that efficient use of sources and some interventional approaches would reduce healthcare costs and improve the overall quality of care by optimizing health outcomes.
The limited resources for healthcare is no longer an imagination, but it is a reality. With increasing population, emerging chronic and communicable diseases, and slow socio-economic or political progress, the sources allocated for the healthcare delivery system will continue to be inadequate. Despite such limited resources, a critical question must be asked. Does expensive healthcare imply quality, accessible and affordable healthcare? Already healthcare is expensive. A substantial portion of the population can no longer access quality healthcare services.
However, the healthcare practices could be the critical reason behind ever-rising healthcare costs. It is upon policymakers and healthcare leaders such as nurses to advocate for practices that support prudent utilization of available resources to deliver quality healthcare services. The factors underpinning rising healthcare costs include fragmentation, unsustainable costs, suboptimal outcomes, and healthcare disparities (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). According to Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017), cost and quality concerns alongside changing social and disease-type demographics culminates in urgency for change. The Affordable Care Act includes, as encapsulated in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, aiming to improve quality and control cost. A nurse should use the Affordable Care Act as leverage to advance effective cost utilization policies that keep the cost of healthcare under...