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Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
Ahmed Diaz Trinquete
Walden University
NURS -6053 C
Interprofessional Organizational and Systems Leadership
Dawn Julian
06/08/2024
Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
Rising healthcare costs seriously affect the organization's ability to deliver competent care. However, appropriate leadership is instrumental in promoting policy changes that will help address rising healthcare costs.
Issue Description
Healthcare costs are continuing to rise, which is posing significant challenges to healthcare organizations. In the last financial year, our organization was significantly impacted and registered a 10% rise in healthcare expenditures compared to the previous financial period. As a result, these fluctuating costs seriously affect the organization's ability to deliver. Rising costs have a direct impact on the economic stability of the organization, which is directly linked to the organization's ability to provide competent quality care to the patients (Shrant et al., 2021). Additionally, increased cost of healthcare results in measures aimed at cutting costs and promoting the overall sustainability of the organization. Some measures that could be adopted include cutting the labor force, which could lead to a shortage of workers in the primary care setting. This results in unmet healthcare demands, which may further strain and work-related stress among nurses and other healthcare professionals (Shrant et al., 2021). When that happens, patients have to wait for extended times to receive necessary care, and overall increased workload, and demotivation among workers are associated with the stressful work environment, which causes a lack of satisfaction with their jobs (Shrant et al., 2021). Consequently, healthcare professionals may register increased turnover rates.
Articles Summaries
Rising healthcare costs have been identified as serious healthcare issues, which could potentially impact the ability of healthcare organizations to deliver care. When there is a rise in the cost of care, the disease burden is more likely to increase (Fazal et al., 2022). One way through which care costs increase is reduction of quality and disease burden increases due to rationing and limiting health care services (Fazal et al., 2022). Healthcare services become financially unaffordable, resulting in barriers to seeking appropriate healthcare services promptly. Uninsured patients will find it unaffordable to seek healthcare services because they will be required the unbearable health costs when paying out of pocket. As a result, unmet healthcare needs increase, especially among low-income earners (Fazal et al., 2022). Therefore, the poor segments of the population are disproportionately impacted by rising care costs. The population may not afford the cost of the drugs, which results in deteriorating care.
The United States population faces significant strain as they try to finance healthcare as the country does not have a universal healthcare system (Bush, 2018). At the same time, the country spends significantly on public health. Failing to address the root cause of the rising healthcare cost burden continues to put a significant burden on healthcare systems. Therefore, targeting resources for the vulnerable is a significant milestone in addressing the healthcare burden concern through preventive and costly chronic conditions (Bush, 2018).
Policy Strategies to Address the Issue
From the reviewed articles there are various strategies that organizations can adopt to manage the effects associated with rising healthcare costs. It has been established that rising costs result in various implications for healthcare. One strategy that could be utilized is the expansion of the APRN's roles in an organization. The scope of practice should include other roles in a healthcare setting. For instance, they can be allowed to practice independently when providing various healthcare services. As a result, they can utilize their skills, widen their scope of practice, and ensure they can serve more patients (World Health Organization, 2020). This will eventually reduce the cost that will be incurred if additional care providers are employed.
Additionally, it is important to implement population health management strategies. For instance, such a strategy identifies the origin of a disease, promotes disease preventive efforts, and reduces costs associated with increased disease burden. Additionally, efforts could identify the social determinants of health that impact vulnerable populations such as socioeconomic status, and assess their risk of vulnerability to infections (World Health Organization, 2020). This will help put in place preventive measures that prevent emergency diseases, which are costly to treat.
Another factor that results in an emergency of diseases is the associated overhead costs such as transport to the healthcare facilities. Nurses can promote the adoption of modern technology such as telemedicine to leverage their accessibility and affordability components and enhance access to healthcare services.
Additionally, it is important to re-evaluate existing healthcare programs to ensure there is coordination and there is no duplication of services and roles. This will also prevent unnecessary admissions and promote optimal utilization of resources, which has significant cost savings for the organization.
These strategies should be implemented in close collaboration with stakeholders to avoid hurdles that may be faced implementation of such programs. One of the concerns is that when seeking to expand the roles played by APRNs, they might perceive an increase in work burden and they might be opposed to it (World Health Organization, 2020). Therefore, it is important to ensure all stakeholders are educated and consulted and ensure every program is planned adequately to facilitate its implementation.
In conclusion, the significant rise in healthcare costs in the United States poses a threat to healthcare organizations. However, with appropriate strategies in place, the implications of such strategies can be a significant milestone towards cost reduction and promoting affordability and accessibility of healthcare services. Nonetheless, careful planning is needed to achieve the objective of such strategies.
References
Bush, M. (2018). Addressing the root cause: rising health care costs and social determinants of health.
North Carolina Medical Journal,
79(1), 26-29.
Fazal, F., Saleem, T., Ur Rehman, M. E., Haider, T., Khalid, A. R., Tanveer, U., Mustafa, H., Tanveer, J., & Noor, A. (2022). The rising cost of healthcare and its contribution to the worsening disease burden in developing countries.
Annals of medicine and surgery (2012),
82, 104683.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2022.104683
Shrank, W. H., DeParle, N. A., Gottlieb, S., Jain, S. H., Orszag, P., Powers, B. W., & Wilensky, G. R. (2021). Health Costs And Financing: Challenges And Strategies For A New Administration: Commentary recommends health cost, financing, and other priorities for a new US administration.
Health Affairs,
40(2), 235-242.
World Health Organization. (2020). WHO package of essential noncommunicable (PEN) disease interventions for primary health care.
