4-The shift is needed to stop diseases before they start and all
4-The shift is needed to stop diseases before they start and allow all people to be healthy. According to an article published by NCBI the US spends more on health care than any other country, yet our nation ranks lower than several other nations in life expectancy, infant mortality, and other health life indicators. Government is striving to change our current health care system and recognize prevention is essential. Some preventative services that would be beneficial are smoking cessation screening, alcohol abuse screening, and aspirin use to the recommended levels. These preventative services along with improving lives heels save 3.7 billion in annually cost (Benjamin, 2011). Nursing role is to inform people of preventative measures, such as immunizations, cancer screenings, tobacco free living, healthy eating, being active, injury and violence free, reproductive and sexual health, mental and emotional wellbeing, so they can make healthy choices (Benjamin, 2011). As nurses provide patients with the tools and information of these healthy choices they are able to access if patients need assistance with cost, transportation and other barriers that can prevent a patient from accessing these preventative services a great way is community programs such a clinic on wheels. Nurses can also volunteer in their community to provide teaching and preventative measures. Reference Benjamin, (2011). The National Prevention Strategy: Shifting the Nations Health-Care System. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185312/ 5-Oh, how I love this question. When I first started college as a teenager, I found my calling toward my journey as becoming a nurse. I was so scared to do this because I knew that I would be responsible for others lives. When I began this journey, I always knew that my end-goal was to do something in primary care. This is because I feel that the United States, in general, can be more about fixing problems that have happened rather than preventing them from starting in the first place. This applies to the entire medical field as well. I have worked for two completely separate health care facilities, a private/non-profit hospital, and a government-run VA hospital. These are two completely different worlds of health care, but they have been going in the same direction: primary care. Both health care networks have branched out, from having only hospitals, to also building several Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs). Health care networks are finally realizing that prevention is the key to good health, not fixing health problems that have already occurred. I love to educate patients and cannot wait to someday finally get to my goal position in community health so that I can educate and give appropriate resources to better the health of our patients. In hospital facilities, we have nurse educators, but, as I have seen, they are not readily available when patients need them the most or are not being utilized enough. Nurses working on the floor are simply overworked and do not have the time to sit and educate patients appropriately, especially since education is supposed to start the moment the patient comes through the hospital doors until discharge. Also, some nurses may have time but others do not and so the education is not consistent. I am huge on diabetic education as I believe that this is one of our biggest health problems and will become worse as people continue eating the way they do (and not exercising). In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 30 million people in the United States have diabetes, which is one out of ten people (2017). Also, more than 84 million people have prediabetes (CDC, 2017)! I could go on and on with this topic though as there are so many crazy facts about diabetes. The point is that eating right, staying active, and losing weight can be detrimental to a persons health and the facts are being proven over and over again. It is our job, as nurses, to be able to help so many people make their lives better through educating them and giving them these blunt facts so that they can make informed decisions about their health. 6-The role in healthcare care reform in shifting the focus from a disease -oriented health care system toward one of wellness involves the implementation of policies and procedures that focus on preventative health. This things include screenings, wellness education classes, healthy eating. vaccination programs etc. These are the types of things that prevent diseases before they occurr. With the focus of health being toward preventing disease changes the entire focus of the healthcare system. This was one of the plans for Obama care because the govenrment has figured that if they changed the focus of healthcare it would decrease the rate of disease and lower healthcare costs over time. Of course this entire health care reform will take years to actually notice a difference. Nurses are the forefront of healthcare. We are the number one influencers for health and promoting health.Pt education and health promotion is a major part of the role of a nurse.Ensuring that patients are focused on preventative health reduces hospital readmissions. McDonald, M. (2018) Healthcare reform: Whats up and what can we do. Virginia Nurses Today .Volume 26, Issue 3: 1-12
