NR 531 Week 2 Discussion Care Delivery Models and Effective Nurse Administrators
NR 531 Week 2 Discussion Care Delivery Models and Effective Nurse Administrators
Care Delivery Models and Effective Nurse Administrators
You are the nurse administrator at SLMC. Your Human Resources Director informed you that SLMC is having difficulty recruiting registered nurses for your facility. It was decided by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to hire more nursing assistants to assist during this shortage. Discuss the impact this new strategy/model may have on the organization and how an effective leader can assist with implementing this change.
Population health issues change over time due to lifestyle changes, exposure to new risks, health access, and other factors. Effective response to health concerns requires profound changes in health practice and care models to ensure patients receive care that matches their needs. Health care delivery models commonly focus on access, payment structures, and strategies to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Due to their central role in patient care, nurses should understand models emerging from health care reforms and restructuring. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine current changes to reform the U.S. health care delivery system and the nurse’s role within the changing environment.
Current Reform and Effects on Nursing Practice and the Nurse’s Role
Reforms seeking to improve care access to rural communities are critical for addressing health care disparity. One such reform is the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) program. As a state loan repayment program, NHSC promotes physician practice in rural communities by encouraging providers to work in rural areas. According to Waldrop and Gee (2022), clinicians under the NHSC program can receive up to $50,000 in federally-funded loan repayments to encourage them to provide primary, dental, and mental health care in rural communities. This reform is founded on the principle that high student debts are why many health practitioners opt to work in urban areas instead of less populated rural settings.
Health care reforms significantly affect the nursing practice and the nurse’s role and responsibility. As a global health concern, health care staff shortages decrease access to care in rural areas, leading to poor health outcomes (Smith, 2022). The implication is that encouraging nursing professionals to work in rural communities through the NHSC is essential for higher outcomes in nursing practice. The program will reduce inequality in terms of health professionals, risk factors, and disease burden that rural residents experience. The nurse’s role and responsibility are also affected by reforms. Typical outcomes include expanded nurse practitioner autonomy and a higher responsibility to lead change in rural settings. Autonomy expands the nurse’s scope of practice, while change leadership helps organizations to implement innovative practices to address health challenges affecting rural communities.
Effects of Quality Measures and Pay-for-Performance on Patient Outcomes
Nursing professionals should have an innate desire to achieve high patient outcomes. Quality measures quantify care processes, outcomes, and systems to determine practitioners’ and organizations’ ability to provide high-quality care (CMS.gov, 2023). Their result-oriented nature guides nursing practitioners in improving patient outcomes by bettering procedures to maximize value. Mathes et al. (2019) described pay-for-performance as a model that rewards health care providers for meeting predefined quality targets. Hence, the model motivates health professionals to increase care quality and efficacy to achieve high rewards. While doing so, high patient outcomes are achieved since high care quality that prevents readmissions, health complications, and morality is a foundation of optimal patient outcomes.
Quality measures and pay-for-performance foster outcome-driven and value-based care. In this case, they ensure nursing procedures and workplace culture are designed to maximize outcomes and ensure patients get the value of care. For instance, teamwork and innovative practices to reduce hospital-acquired infections maximize value by reducing costs associated with treating such infections (Haque et al., 2020). Accordingly, nurses are expected to embrace procedures that maximize value and be open to change as situations necessitate. Their responsibilities also expand since they must lead change and implement evidence-based practice (EBP), among other strategies for improving the value of care. The expanded role ensures that nurses’ responsibilities are not restricted to primary caregiving. Instead, nurses serve as leaders and innovators to ensure health care services align with patients’ expectations.
Emerging Professional Nursing Leadership and Management Roles
As an evolving practice, nursing prompts numerous changes in leadership and management roles. One of the emerging roles dominating nursing leadership and management is knowledge working. As knowledge workers, nurse leaders respond to inspiration and change in an information and high-tech health care era (Joseph & Huber, 2021). The other role characterizing current practice is strategic management. Effective leadership and management should recognize emerging opportunities, potential risks, and appropriate adaptation. In nursing, strategic management is essential for responding to technological, societal, and political changes (Figueroa et al., 2019). Knowledge working and strategic management characterizes forward-thinking leadership, typical in organizations that embrace innovation and are committed to improving outcomes.
Knowledge working and strategic management are crucial in response to emerging trends and in promoting patient safety and quality care in healthcare settings. According to Figueroa et al. (2019), health leadership should provide organizational direction and set priorities for improved health services. Since emerging trends like technology and virtual care come with significant risks, strategic leaders help organizations to respond effectively. Such leaders can also identify areas where maximum effort should be devoted to maximize benefits. Knowledge working is a foundation of evidence-based practice since it encourages leaders and nursing professionals to utilize new knowledge to improve processes and outcomes. To promote evidence-based practice, nursing leaders create a culture of inquiry, which supports the integration of evidence in informing leadership and management (Sevy Majers & Warshawsky, 2020). Evidence improves problem-solving, hence better care quality and comprehensive response to patient safety concerns.
Emerging Trends and Potential Transformation of Nursing Practice and Roles
Emerging trends in health care demonstrate the need for adaptation to ensure patient needs are effectively addressed. Such trends include virtual care and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). As Stamenova et al. (2022) observed, the need for virtual care increased after the COVID-19 pandemic and never dropped below 50%. These trends will impact the nursing practice and roles in terms of resources and approaches to care within the next five years. In agreement with Jin et al. (2020.), health care organizations require stable telemedicine infrastructure to support virtual care. Therefore, organizations must update their systems and skills to support virtual care and artificial intelligence for safe and high-quality care. Nurses will also be centrally involved in promoting technology-driven care and evaluating outcomes. Interprofessional collaboration will also be emphasized since nursing informaticists and other professionals should work together to succeed in virtual care and other aspects of health technologies.
Conclusion
Health care delivery models change continually amid changes in population health issues, work dynamics, laws, and other factors. As discussed in this paper, the NHSC for promoting health care access in rural areas is a crucial reform in the last five years, influencing nursing practice significantly. The law is crucial in reducing access inequalities by ensuring rural communities access health care services promptly. As such changes occur, nursing practice must respond to emerging trends such as virtual care and AI. Effective response is necessary for health care organizations to maximize opportunities that emerging trends present, like improved efficiency and effectiveness.
References
CMS.gov. (2023). Quality measures. https://www.cms.gov/medicare/quality/measures#:~:text=Quality%20measures%20are%20tools%20that,quality%20goals%20for%20health%20care.
Figueroa, C. A., Harrison, R., Chauhan, A., & Meyer, L. (2019). Priorities and challenges for health leadership and workforce management globally: a rapid review. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4080-7
Haque, M., McKimm, J., Sartelli, M., Dhingra, S., Labricciosa, F. M., Islam, S., Jahan, D., Nusrat, T., Chowdhury, T. S., Coccolini, F., Iskandar, K., Catena, F., & Charan, J. (2020). Strategies To Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections: A Narrative Overview. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 13, 1765–1780. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S269315
Jin, M. X., Kim, S. Y., Miller, L. J., Behari, G., & Correa, R. (2020). Telemedicine: Current impact on the future. Cureus, 12(8), e9891. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.9891
Joseph, M. L., & Huber, D. (2021). Leadership and nursing care management-e-book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Mathes, T., Pieper, D., Morche, J., Polus, S., Jaschinski, T., & Eikermann, M. (2019). Pay for performance for hospitals. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 7(7), CD011156. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011156.pub2
Sevy Majers, J., & Warshawsky, N. (2020). Evidence-based decision-making for nurse leaders. Nurse Leader, 18(5), 471–475. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2020.06.006
Smith, J. G. (2022). Rural nursing health services research: a strategy to improve rural health outcomes. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(8), e97-e98. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15305
Stamenova, V., Chu, C., Pang, A., Fang, J., Shakeri, A., Cram, P., Bhattacharyya, O., Bhatia, R. S., & Tadrous, M. (2022). Virtual care use during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on healthcare utilization in patients with chronic disease: a population-based repeated cross-sectional study. PloS One, 17(4), e0267218. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267218
Waldrop, T., & Gee, E. (2022). How states can expand health care access in rural communities. CAP. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-states-can-expand-health-care-access-in-rural-communities/
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
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