The Arkansas Aging Initiative Encourages Hospitals For Practice Holistic And Team Approach Care

The Older Americans Act (OAA) funds critical services that keep older adults healthy and independent—services like meals, job training, senior centers, caregiver support, transportation, health promotion, benefits enrollment, and more. The Act is overdue for reauthorization—and Congress needs to seize this opportunity to update and renew its commitment to these programs and those they serve. To ensure America’s aging population is able to maintain and live healthy lives provisions are needed to the current OAA. These provisions include:

Current numbers show substantial growth from the eighties, and estimates suggest that the demand for long term care among the elderly will more than double in the next thirty years. (Feder, Komisar, and Niefeld) This growth will exacerbate concerns about balancing institutional and noninstitutional care, assuring quality of care, and most importantly adopting and sustaining financing mechanisms that equitably and adequately protect the elderly who need long-term care.

Specifically, the AHCPII is meant to improve Arkansas’s health system through three approaches: patient centered medical homes, health homes, and episodes of care.

The Advanced Practice Nursing profession retraces a particular evolutionary pathway over the years to become what it is known today. The movement started in the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s, whereas there was a shortage of primary care physicians because of the rapid expansion of specialization in medicine. Thus, the demand for health care grew to the point that the recruitment of registered nurses to collaborate with physicians was the option. At this point of time, nurses’ collaboration was significant in terms of treatment, disease prevention and health promotion. Since then, the idea of a need for advanced nurse practice takes place in the underserved population areas to increase access to health

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare or ACA, was signed into law in March 2010 with the goal to expand insurance coverage to millions of Americans over a period of several years. Since its enactment six years ago, there have been millions of Americans that have gained access to coverage. The most notable of this population would be the disabled, mentally ill, and impoverished. In order to continue to provide quality outcomes for patients, especially patients of vulnerable populations, extra focus must be given to ensure access to healthcare, decreasing disparities, and harvesting improvement in areas such as preventative care, education, and maximizing quality of life. With this influx of people entering the healthcare field, the role of nurses and nurse leaders is also expected to change. Nursing scope of practice and education will be expanded to create an elite healthcare provider. This will include maximizing knowledge in areas of holistic care, education, and preventative care. The incorporation of the ACA into healthcare for vulnerable populations will have several implications for nurses including expanding leadership roles, changing the healthcare delivery model, and providing a broad range of care.

Our elderly population is living longer than ever before and not all of them are entering into a nursing home. They are choosing to stay in their own home or their caregiver is choosing it for them. Some caregivers are choosing to move their ageing love one in the home with them. Whatever the case may be, there is an increased need for some type of home health as it applies to the elderly population. “Medicare will pay the full cost of professional help only if the physician

The Rural Accountable Care Organizations Improvement Act of 2015, introduced to the United States Senate in May and now being reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee, will amend part of the Social Security Act to try and improve the way the Medicare shared savings program assigns beneficiaries by basing the assignments on services of primary care offered by providers, including Nurse Practitioners (Govtrack.us, 2015). For Nurse Practitioners specifically, this new legislation will allow nurse practitioner patients to be assigned to Medicare shared savings Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) (AANP, 2015).

With the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 approximately 32 million more people will be insured throughout the United States. The need for healthcare workers and providers will be in drastic demand to provide care to these insured Americans. The 2010 IOM report details out how the advanced practice nurse can be a valuable asset in primary, chronic and transitional care and their skill set should be used to promote better healthcare across the nation (IOM, 2010). This impact of this report should help progress advanced practice nurse’s ability to practice without individual state regulation and be governed under one body to server in and outside of the hospital setting

With the expected rise in the population of people over fifty, AARP is focusing on the importance of nurses in healthcare. Nurses have been very instrumental in filling in the gaps of providing care for seniors. “AARP also provided supplemental insurance to help members with prescriptions and home care needs” (AARP,

As the young and rapidly-aging population continues to increase, the demands of primary, acute and chronic disease management will also increase. As a result, more health care professionals who provide primary care will be needed to meet these demands. Thus, the emergence of Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) evolve. APRN is a nurse who has completed a graduate degree and has acquired advanced knowledge and skills. APRNs are grounded with theory, concepts and principles that enable them to assess, diagnose, treat and manage their patients. APRNs can work in conjunction with other health care professionals or independently. APRNs improve access to health care by providing care in the rural and underserved areas. APRNs also reduce the cost to health care (Joel, 2013).

The role of Advanced Practice Nursing (APN) has changed dramatically in recent years. Currently, the Unite States (U.S.) health care is focusing on delivering a cost -effective health care to all patients. In the last decades, there were many efforts to control health care over spending in the U.S. One of such efforts is to focus on applying proven principles of evidence-based practice and cost-effectiveness to find the least expensive way to produce a specific clinical service of acceptable quality (Bauer, 2010). The vast changes in health care system, such as cost, need for high productivity, limitation on reimbursement, and the inadequacy on access have made APNs to think in a way where they most fit to provide independent care for

Advanced Practice Nurses are educated in theory, evidence based research, and financial practices. Their knowledge and skills can be accessed and implemented into the acute and chronic care settings of all health care environments. APN’s can deliver effective and efficient health care to various underdeveloped and underserved populations across the nation. APN’s can increase the health and financial stability of individuals, communities, and health care facilities through preventive care and managerial expertise.

The ACL’s programs are easily accessible through doctor’s office referrals, community outreach programs, and they have a phone number online for anyone who has questions. Social workers can also help set up a patient with help from these programs. This is effecting health care now by offering help to those in need and providing support to people suffering from Alzheimer’s. By maintaining independence cost of healthcare is being kept down from the high cost of nursing homes and hospital stays. These programs offer assistance to keep

The Blueprint for Action—2017 Public Policy Agenda (hereafter, “the Blueprint”) sets forth those issues that are of highest priority for advocacy for and by members of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). By working in a skilled nursing facility (SNF) of the medical setting, there are many health care issues mentioned including Medicaid Reimbursement & Coverage Policies, Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA), Private Health Plans Reimbursement & Coverage Policies, Hearing Health Care, and Telepractice/Telehealth. Managing work place can be a challenge in health care.

American Nurses Association represented since 1974 represents as (ANA) goal- “improvement of the healthcare system in the United States”