The Affordable Care Act and Nursing Essay Example

and the safety of the patients. To achieve these objectives, the program will focus on establishing a universal insurance cover for all citizens, and create a public-private collaboration to improve the safety, quality and affordability of health care service for all people in the United States.

Application of Affordable Care Act in Nursing Profession

The process of making policy is a process that is defined and can be used to solve any ethical dilemma. The change can be implemented by the public, the national government and the governing body of the health. Health sectors one of the most sensitive sectors in the society which requires effective leadership skills. The leadership skill is of paramount importance to any to the health sector Effective leader facilitates team work in the health. Teamwork helps the workers to perform their duties as one unit, and this helps to ensure the all interrelated activities run smoothly towards the attainment of a given target. For instance, team work and co-operation is very necessary for the theater where a team of surgeons conduct surgical procedures on a patient. Leadership skills will help the team leader to co-ordinate all activities during the procedure to ensure that the operation has been carried out successfully. Implementations of the laid policies require proper coordination from all the stakeholders that include the nurse, the government and the public. Responsibility is vested in the senior nurse manager officer, who directs the way of implementation. Together with the higher office, they can evaluate the viability of the policies and the impact of the policies in the society.

Objective of the Affordable Care Act

The key objective of the Affordable Care Act was to

bridge the gap in the health care service delivery by establishing new roles and duties for registered nurses (RNs) that would have significant impact the health sector and direct it in the right direction. Five key new roles for RNs have been captured in the Affordable Care Act. Some of these new roles include Care Coordinator, Faculty Team Leader, Informatics Specialist, Primary Carew Partner as well as Community Centered nurse. These new roles are intended to bring dynamic transformations in the nursing profession with the objective of improved service delivery and better working condition.

Advantage of the Affordable Care Act to the Nursing Profession

One of the key benefits of the Affordable Care Act is that it will allow greatly contribute to the expansion of the healthcare industry. The nursing sector is one of the largest health professions in the United States regarding projected growth of over 580,000 new nursing job opportunities being established by the year 2018(Wakefield, 2010). It is speculated that over one million replacement, as well as new nurses, will be required by the year 2015. The job growth is expected to occur at all levels of health sector including ambulatory care, transitional care, home care, palliative care as well as co-ordination care (Wakefield, 2010). Also, there is projected increased new care modality due to high levels of technology as well as payment schemes of nurses. As such, the affordable care will create many job opportunities in the nursing profession for many educated and skilled but jobless American citizens. The demand for nurses in all the American States is expected to increase as a result of the expansion of the healthcare sector.

Also, the provisions

of the affordable healthcare act will enable the nursing profession to be strong and play a significant role in the health sector. The nursing profession will be recognized for its role in co-ordination and well as its growing expertise in various healthcare areas such as clinical nursing specialists, health coaching, health advanced practice as well as nursing informatics. The Affordable Care Act contains legal provisions that will increase scholarship for the nurses who would wish to advance their studies. Also, it has outlined the Loan Repayment system for nurses in the National Health Service Corps. As such, the nursing profession is expected to experience increased job mobility and promotions as more nurses will enroll for advanced nursing studies. Also, this will help the nurses to be equipment with emerging technology and current trends in the healthcare sector. The new legal provisions will also address the issue of shortage of nurses by providing the opportunity for loan repayment for the nursing faculty that will teach full-time in both public as well as accredited private institutions. It will also offer special system for loan repayment for nurse professionals from poor backgrounds. The Affordable Care Act also encourages innovation and inventions in service delivery by health care professions through allocation of funds to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Innovations to evaluate service delivery and payment models.

Shortage of Nurses

The main cause of nurse shortage was poor pay unfavorable working conditions. It was noted with great concern that a significant number of nurses decided to learn health sector for other careers citing poor remunerations. Also, the hospital did not have adequate protective equipment that could protect nurses from infections

and other health hazards in the working environment As such; the nurses were vulnerable to infections and other contacting diseases. Poor working conditions in the hospital and other working environmental conditions for nurses bring about nosocomial infections for both patients and nurses. One of the current challenging issues health issues in the United States is hospital-acquired infections. Over the recent past years, the cases of patients acquiring new infections while in health facilities have been on the rise (Koh & Sebelius, 2010).

Solutions from Affordable Care Act to Challenges Facing Nursing Profession

The main solution to shortage of nurses is the government to heavily invest in the health sector. To address the challenge of shortage of nurses and physicians, the Obamacare have a provision for increased funds through grants for residency programs. The policy encourages innovative strategies and models that will remunerate doctors for the provision of quality services to the patients. Fare and favorable remunerations to health workers will motivate many people to join health-related professional and thus increasing access to quality healthcare services (Wakefield, 2010). Moreover, the universal medical insurance cover will ensure that all American citizens access quality medical services despite their financial status. For instance, it will be easier for patients with low to get high-cost medical treatment. As such, there will be enough funds to remunerate nurses fairly according to their work output. The Affordable healthcare act also will address the issue of nurse shortage by increasing the current salary of nurses. As such, this will reduce the high level of number of nurses quilting the health professional to other jobs which seems to have higher pays. In additional the Affordable Act

has outlined strategies for providing loans to needy students in colleges and universities who are pursing medical related courses such as nurses. As such, this will attract more students to enroll in nursing courses which will in turn increase the number of nurses in the healthcare industry.

References

1. Huntington, W. V., Covington, L. A., Center, P. P., Covington, L. A., & Manchikanti, L. (2011). Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010: reforming the health care reform for the new decade. Pain Physician, 14(1), E35-E67.
2. Keating, S. B. (2014). Curriculum development and evaluation in nursing. Springer Publishing Company.
3. Koh, H. K., & Sebelius, K. G. (2010). Promoting prevention through the affordable care act. New England Journal of Medicine, 363(14), 1296-1299.
4. Protection, Patient, and Affordable Care Act. "Patient protection and affordable care act." Public Law 111 (2010): 48.
   Wakefield, M. K. (2010). Nurses and the affordable care act. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 110(9), 11.