Changes in the U.S. Health Care System and Their Impact on Nursing Profession

Changes in the U.S. Health Care System and Their Impact on Nursing Profession

Introduction

The U.S. health system is a monster. This is by far the most expensive in the world. Currently, various changes are experienced by healthcare system of United States especially in nursing profession. Barack Obama Health Care Reform is the most significant change in the U.S. health care system since 1960 as a program was created Medicare, paid budget scheme that allows taking care of the health of those Americans, who passed for 65 years. Nursing is considered as the largest segment of healthcare workforce of a nation having approx 3 million members. Nurses are playing an important role and helping realize the aims and objectives set forth in Affordable Care Act of 2010. The Affordable Care Act has opened the door to the nursing profession. There are various barriers preventing nurses from being able to rapidly and effectively respond to evolving healthcare system and quickly changing settings of health care. (IOM) and (FWJF) developed a report and took an initiative to respond to the transform nursing profession and overcome these barriers (D'Antonio, 2010). The report included various recommendations to transform the nursing profession for future effectiveness. In this paper I am going to evaluate these changes in healthcare system of US and shall analyze impact of these changes on nursing profession.

Changes in health care System of United States

Institute of Medicine issued this report was developed in October 2010, which aimed at bringing extraordinary change in the nursing profession of US health care. Following are some changes that IOM report tried to bring in US health care (See Appendix).

Change # 1

Under this recommendation IOM has tried to focus on two different but interlink subcategories. The first subcategory speaks of practice while the other pertains to nurse residency programs. It says that no matter a nurse working as an advanced practice nurse or as a staff nurse in the community, he/she should be able to practice to the full extent of their training and education. On the other hand it is very important to implement multilevel residency programs to the entrance of a nurse can be managed for example Student to practitioner.

Change # 2

This recommendation states that nurses should attain high level of training and education to promote seamless academic progression and this can be achieved when nursing education system would be effective and improved (www.theatlantic.com). Thus, the nursing education system should be improved so that quality care could be provided across the setting. Demands of healthcare system have increased and these can be met when nurses would be highly educated and trained. In other words, nurses should be educated with health professionals and physicians not only as a student but they should continue doing it throughout their career. Nurses daily deal with diverse population so the focus of their education and training should also be focusing on diverse education on various culture and ...