When discussing the impending health care shortage, many people start with the simple question of “Can we not just train more physicians” to which the answer is not really. As Nathan mentioned we could just train people on how to operate on patients the level that would be expected in a physician, however, the problem is deeper than just training more people. Training more people costs money, money that hospitals may not have. To understand this one must understand the current state of medical education. First of all, medical schools are accepting more students, in fact, between the years 2002 and 2016, the number of medical schools enrollees has increased by 27.5% (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2016). The problem arises once these medical students try to get residencies. Graduate medical education, also known as residencies, are funded by a combination of Medicare, Medicaid, and the hospitals themselves. As of today, there is a cap on the funding that hospitals receive to train residents, so when the number of medical students rose, the funding did not. This lack …show more content…
Nurses, and in particular nurse practitioners, have already the training needed to provide the level care necessary and are already efficient at providing care due to the nature of their work. It makes sense to allow nurses to provide primary care to at the very least alleviate the effects of the shortage and reduce the current dependence of physicians the country currently has. Nurse practitioners according to studies have shown to be better than physicians when it comes to patient follow up, provision of screening, assessments and counseling services (Cassidy, 2012). Furthermore giving NP’s the role of primary care clinicians would be a much faster fix to the shortage since it takes on average 6 years to complete their education and training verse the 11 to 12 years it would take a physician (Cassidy,
Kaiser Permanente’s mission is to provide care assistance to those in need. As a health maintenance organization, Kaiser Permanente provides preventive care such as prenatal care, immunizations, diagnostics, hospital medical and pharmacy services. Also, they take responsibility and provide exceptional training for their future health professionals for better clinical performance and treatment for the patients. The organization is to ensure fair and proper treatment towards their employees for a pleasant working environment in hospital and to provide medical services especially in a growing population in suburban communities, such as Tracy and Stockton in California.
Nurses and physicians need to become partners in health care reform. We have a responsibility to provide competent care to our patients. National standards need to be put in place to decrease the inconsistencies in APN practice. Overwhelming data supports the APN over the physician in cost effectiveness, quality and access to care and many other aspects.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 with the goal of expanding healthcare coverage to all Americans by reforming insurance policies and practices (Tillett, 2011). The ACA upsurges the demand for an increase in primary care providers in order to supply quality care to the much larger population that will have coverage and therefore acquiring healthcare. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) through its report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health has generated a solution to the shortage of primary care providers by promoting a transformation of the nursing profession to fill the gap.
There has been a shortage of physicians, lack of inpatient beds, problems with ambulatory services, as well as not having proper methods of dealing with patient overflow, all in the past 10 years (Cummings & francescutti, 2006, p.101). The area of concern that have been worse...
There is an ongoing debate on the topic of how to fix the health care system in America. Some believe that there should be a Single Payer system that ensures all health care costs are covered by the government, and the people that want a Public Option system believe that there should be no government interference with paying for individual’s health care costs. In 1993, President Bill Clinton introduced the Health Security Act. Its goal was to provide universal health care for America. There was a lot of controversy throughout the nation whether this Act was going in the right direction, and in 1994, the Act died. Since then there have been multiple other attempts to fix the health care situation, but those attempts have not succeeded. The Affordable Care Act was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. President Obama signed it into law on March 23 (Obamacare Facts). This indeed was a step forward to end the debate about health care, and began to establish the middle ground for people in America. In order for America to stay on track to rebuild the health care system, we need to keep going in the same direction and expand our horizons by keeping and adding on to the Affordable Care Act so every citizen is content.
There are several issues concerning the uninsured and underinsured patient population in America. There are many areas of concern the congressional efforts to increase the availability of health insurance, the public image of the insurance industry illustrated by the movie "John Q", the lack of good management tools, and creating health insurance coverage for all low income Americans. Since the number of uninsured Americans has risen to 43 million from 37 million in the flourishing 1990s and could shoot up even more severely if the economy continues to decrease and health care premiums keep increasing (Insurance No Simple Fix, 2001).
Just as the economy travels through its cycles, from bear to bull and back again, so does the number of doctors in the country. In the 1960s, the government began an attempt to create more physicians using various methods. One such method was to reward medical schools for training a certain number of doctors (Bernstein 1013). This would give the medical schools an incentive to accept more students and to allow the students to fully graduate and go on to attend residency programs. Another such method was to give a monetary reward to residency programs for providing graduate medical education. This totaled approximately $7 billion, a sum large enough to “pay the tuition and living expenses of every medical student in the United States” with a large portion left over as well (Bernstein 1013). Because of these actions taken by the government, many more physicians were created, causing a physician surplus throughout the 1980s to the late 1990s, although this claim was based on ...
Currently, there are multiple challenges to the US healthcare system like the nation’s aging population and the staggering reports of alarming rates of increase in chronic diseases in both pediatrics and adults (Stanley, 2012). While the need for more healthcare providers who can take care of these populations increases, a study by Peterson et al. (2012) states that there is a foreseen shortage primary care physician due to new physicians opting to specialize. Coincidentally, the availability of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) has been increasing throughout the years. APRNs, specifically Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs), can fill in the shortage of primary care providers (Stanley, 2012).
The prolonged shortage of skilled nursing personnel has been a serious concern to the healthcare industry, and this shortage has impacted the quality of care delivery. In addition, nursing turnover has also exacerbated the problem of nursing shortage. Nursing shortage has been blamed on many nurses retiring and less younger nurses joining the occupation. There is also an increase in life expectancy (baby boomers) leading an increase in both physical and mental ailment with subsequent demand in nursing care. Nurses are also leaving nursing profession because of inadequate staffing, tense work environment, negative press about the profession, and inflexible work schedules. Even though nursing is a promising career and offers job security, the
Solutions for the nursing shortage beyond implementing safe nurse staffing ratios include: ongoing long-term workforce planning; institution of an education and practice system to promote more equitable compensation in the health care community based on a better understanding of the educational preparation required for different health care roles; implementation of specific strategies to retain experienced nurses in the provision of direct patient care, investigating the potential for using technological advances to enhance the capacity of a reduced nursing workforce; and advocate for increased nursing education funding under Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act and other publicly funded initiatives to improve
Regardless of the best attempts of medical professionals and educators to increase the workforce over the past, shortages are anticipated in every health care profession. The estimated supply of workers fails to meet the need related with population growth and aging of the population. With the continuous necessity for medical services for the millions who are projected to sign up for Medicaid and the federal and state insurance exchanges, the labor force shortages could become devastating.
Access to health care refers to the ease with which an individual can obtain needed medical services. Many Americans face barriers that make it difficult to obtain basic health care services. These barriers to services include lack of availability, high cost, and lack of insurance coverage. "Limited access to health care impacts people's ability to reach their full potential, negatively affecting their quality of life." (Access to Health Services, 2014) Access to health services encompasses four components that include coverage, services, timeliness, and workforce
The real problem with the health care system in this country is not just the people running it but mainly the massive pit of debt it is continually digging. America spends around 17%, which is about $2.5 trillion of our GDP on health care alone! It is safe to say we spend nearly more than any other country out there. Where is all of this money going though, are they just giving it away to those in need of free medicine or people who cant pay there doctors bills? Most of the money spent is on regulations, research on medicines and failures of medicines that may have not made the “cut” to be on the market.
...ue to numerous medical errors. With the amount of medical errors that currently do occur which is a current health care issue it cost the health care billions of dollar each year to fix the mistakes that were made.
Health care has always been an interesting topic all over the world. Voltaire once said, “The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” It may seem like health care that nothing gets accomplished in different health care systems, but ultimately many trying to cures diseases and improve health care systems.