As the American government focuses on the need to restructure the national healthcare delivery system, it is evident that many healthcare tasks will need accomplishment within the community, while reducing the volume of tasks in acute care hospitals. Therefore, this means that the community-nursing field will increasingly gain importance in the healthcare delivery system, with nurses assuming some of the most important roles in ensuring that the people are provided with the most appropriate care (Hansen-Turton, Ware & McClellan, 2010).
This speech seeks to address the issues that are increasingly rising from restructuring the public healthcare delivery system in the United States. The speech will emphasize the need for nurses to recognize some critical aspects of evolving practice and work within the context of relatively new guidelines and with the community as they steer the national healthcare system in achieving its goals. Moreover, the speech will emphasize conceptions of healthcare delivery such as continuum care, Accountable Health Care Organization for delivery (ACO), and medical home model for healthcare delivery.
First, researchers have shown us that delivery of healthcare to a population in a given country forms the basis on which the potential of a country’s economy and social growth and development can be assessed. The delivery of health care and the effectiveness of national healthcare services provided to the population form an important determinant of how the country will develop.
In the case of the United States of America, there is some adequate evidence that the country is rapidly changing its healthcare delivery system to fit the universal healthcare that will benefit all citizens. One of the major factors playing to the evolution of the American healthcare delivery system is the introduction and large-scale application of technology. This, in turn, has seen the practice of nursing and the healthcare delivery system evolve rapidly over the last two decades.
Secondly, the continuum of health care conception has become an important model for healthcare delivery. This conception involves the incorporation of healthcare structures to direct as well as trail patients over a given period. This is normally within a spread-out period that includes the assortment of health care services across all the levels of health care. The concept allows the medical team to make rightful decisions on how to develop a structure that in turn allows them to deliver the most appropriate healthcare to all the patients in the nation. This concept does not only apply within hospitals but also in home-based care to ensure the patients receive healthcare services at their most comfortable position.
According to Van Zandt, Sloand, and Wilkins (2008), this concept is inclusive of all aspects of healthcare such as rehabilitation, skilled nursing care, dementia, and other brain conditions associated with genetics and old age, assisted care and assisted living as well as independent living. One of the most important aspects of this healthcare delivery concept is the fact that doctors, nurses, and all other members of the medical team must come together as a team and converge in decision-making to determine the best diagnoses, treatments, procedures, and other intervention measures. Al services must be connected rather than be replicated.
Accountable Care Organization (ACO) is created through the grouping of coordinated care suppliers to provide care to a collection of sick persons. This model is described by healthcare delivery as well as a payment method that aims at binding the repayments to the healthcare providers. This method applies several methods of reimbursement, given that paying for the healthcare system is one of the major problems facing Americans today (Hansen-Turton, Ryan, Miller, Counts & Nash, 2007). The method is flexible and couples care payments with quality improvements of the delivery system. In addition, it brings the cost of overall healthcare to the minimum possible levels. Finally, it brings out qualified and dedicated healthcare providers into the continuum of healthcare to reach out to the general population.
References
Hansen-Turton, T., Ryan, S., Miller, K., Counts, M., & Nash, D. B. (2007). Convenient care clinics: The future of accessible health care. Disease Management, 10(2), 61-73.
Hansen-Turton, T., Ware, J., McClellan, F. (2010). Nurse practitioners in primary care. American Journal of Nursing, 110(9), 23-26.
Van Zandt, S. E., Sloand, E., & Wilkins, A. (2008). Caring for vulnerable populations: Role of academic nurse – managed health centers in educating nurse practitioners. Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 4(2), 126-131.