Class
Healthcare cost has steadily risen and has become out of reach for some of our citizens. We as a nation spend over 3 trillion dollars a year on health care but have the very poor outcomes for developed nation. How and why this occurs is the question? The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010 by President Obama and has had several updates since (Nies & McEwen, 2019, p. 174). While this law was supposed to help lower income families be able to afford and access healthcare, it at times has been troublesome at best. Health care cost are still rising, and outcomes are still poor compared tour peers (Bush, 2018, p. 26).
We as nurses are at the front lines of this battle attempting to care for our clients to the best of our ability. We see people at their most vulnerable and weakest states. At these times most are not worried about cost, but we must always keep this in mind. If we use all our resources on just a few we will not be able to help the many. We must always educate about risk factors and ways to prevent illness prior to them becoming so costly “ounce of prevention or pound of cure”. Teaching our communities to eat better stop smoking and exercise is just small ways we can combat these rising costs.
In conclusion I try not to think of cost while caring for my patients but as I have moved up the chain of command in the hospital it becomes necessary to try to save money when possible. Not at the detriment on anyone but assist everyone. We can and should always be looking for ways to streamline and improve the healthcare delivery system.
Thanks Tim
References
Nies, M., & McEwen, M. (2019). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (7 ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.
Rising Health Care Costs and Social Determinants of Health. North Carolina Medical Journal, 79(), 26-29. https://doi.org/10.18043/ncm.79.1.26