The importance of the baccalaureate prepared nurse becoming involved in healthcare policy is that they are prepared to practice in all health care settings that include, outpatient, critical care, public health, and mental health. Accordingly, they are well- qualified to deliver care in private homes, outpatient centers and neighborhood clinics where demand is fast expanding as hospitals focus increasingly on acute care and as healthcare moves beyond the hospital to more primary and preventive services throughout the community.

Recent healthcare policy that has had a direct impact on your clinical practice or in your place of work as it relates to finance include: Publicly funded health care through taxation or insurance, also known as single-payer systems. The health financing policies claim that publicly funded healthcare improves the quality and efficiency of personal delivery. Those people who would do without care due to lack of financial means, any quality care is an improvement. Since people perceive universal healthcare as free if there is no insurance premium or co-payment, they are more likely to seek preventive care which may reduce the disease burden and overall healthcare costs in the long run.

Ways in which nursing can have a direct impact in finance include: Firstly, reimbursement which involves pay-for-performance programs that focus on clinical quality and patient satisfaction mean that nurses have a significant effect on the key metrics that drive reimbursement rates (Everhart,  Neff,  Al-Amin,  Nogle,  & Weech-Maldonado,  2013). Secondly, restricted bed capacity and long waiting times related to ineffective patient flow. Having enough nurses to manage patient flow properly affects hospital turn rates, patient satisfaction, and quality outcomes. Nurses can help get patients admitted, transferred to other departments and discharged at the right times, which help maximize capacity and improve patient care.

Ethical issues that could arise when proposing and implementing healthcare policy include: Firstly, patient confidentiality whereby information about a patient’s medical condition is considered private (Rogers,  2015). Violating a patient’s privacy can hurt the patient and have legal and ethical consequences for the health worker — secondly, malpractice and negligence. Health care practitionners are always at risk of being charged with misconduct and negligence.A patient who is harmed by defective medical equipment or products, injured in the course of a medical treatment or placed in danger because of medication errors can sue to recover their losses.

The ethical issues, for instance, the one for patient confidentiality could be addressed by presenting it to a clinical ethics committee or group in the form of individual cases or in considering hospital policies.

Priority population may be defined as demographic factors such as age, gender, race, income level, education attainment or grade level, marital status or health care coverage status

Strategies that have been implemented to combat these disparities have been successful. They include: ensuring a strategic focus on communities at most significant risk, reducing inequalities in access to quality health care, increasing the capacity of the prevention workforce to identify and address gaps, supporting research to identify effective strategies to eliminate health disparities and standardizing and collecting data to identify better and address inequities.

Nursing can help to combat these disparities by rebuilding the capacity for caring social and relational practice through transforming nursing education on the principle of mutuality. Nursing can also promote nurse-managed primary care and focus on changing local, state and national policies to increase access, equity, and health protection.

What can be done in a clinical setting to address these disparities makes a significant impact on improving health equity and providing more patient-centered care. It is necessary to understand better and address the underlying causes of poor health (Wallerstein,  & Duran, 2014). It is also increasingly recognized that to improve population health; health equity needs to become a priority in the health sector and measures to reduce disparities must be integrated into health programs and services. Training physicians, and other allied health workers to address the social determinants of health is considered one of the fundamental principles for promoting more equitable health outcomes for patients, families, and communities.

Reference

Wallerstein, N. B., & Duran, B. (2014). Using community-based participatory research to address health disparities. Health promotion practice, 7(3), 312-323.

Everhart, D., Neff, D., Al-Amin, M., Nogle, J., & Weech-Maldonado, R. (2013). The effects of nurse staffing on hospital financial performance: Competitive versus less competitive markets. Health care management review, 38(2), 146.

Rogers, M. A. S. (1995). Ethical issues in health care.

 
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