Issues of Increased Healthcare Demands for Vulnerable Populations
Bhatt, J., & Bathija, P. (2018). Ensuring access to quality health care in vulnerable communities. Academic Medicine, 93(9), 1271-1275. Web.
The authors explain that many Americans are living in vulnerable urban and rural communities. The hospitalization of these people is vital, and it is the only source of healthcare. However, as the hospital transformation continues, many of these people might be at the risk of being unable to access healthcare services as well as the resources and the opportunities they require to support their wellbeing. The author explains that there is a need for the implementation of comprehensive plans to transform the delivery of healthcare services within vulnerable communities. This will ensure that personal choices based on their requirements and preferences are attained.
In this article, the author highlights the parameters and the characteristics of vulnerable communities. Additionally, they identify significant healthcare services that healthcare facilities are required to attain as outlined by the “American Hospital Task Force” on ensuring healthcare access in vulnerable populations. These comprise the nine approaches suggested by the task force for the reformation of healthcare delivery. Additionally, the strategies allow healthcare facilities to provide vital services alongside barrier implementation and how to deal with them. The identified strategies include designing global budgets, addressing the social determinants of health, adopting new virtual and innovative methods as well as inpatient and outpatient strategies.
This article is an excellent source because it will enable learners reading it to understand the healthcare barriers that have been outlined by the author among the vulnerable populations. They comprise decreased education on health levels, high underinsurance and uninsurance rates, poor economy, increased rates of unemployment, and low economic resources. Moreover, there is a lack of access to services of primary care and cultural differences that might be challenging, such as cultural, social, and language barriers hindering patients from accessing healthcare services.
How the Nursing Shortage will Impact Healthcare Demands of the Vulnerable Populations Haddad, L. M., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2018). Nursing Shortage. Web.
The authors of this article explain how nurses are an essential part of healthcare. Nurses make up the most significant number in the healthcare profession. World Health Statistics reveal that there are about 30 million midwives and nurses around the world. The author argues that the increased shortage of nurses results from the unavailability of potential educators, inequitable distribution of the workforce, and higher turnover. Therefore, the causes of nurse shortages are high, becoming an issue of concern. The author outlines various potential causes of the shortage of nurses in the healthcare profession. These comprise the current baby boom generation, which has increased the demand for extra healthcare services. The aging workforce where there are more than one million nurses aged 50 years and above (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2018). Nurse burnout where nurses graduate, and after working for some time, they leave the profession. Finally, the field is a career family where the majority are female nurses, and often during the childbearing year, nurses will cut back or leave the profession altogether.
This article is an excellent source because it enables learners to understand the impact caused by the shortage of nurses in vulnerable populations. For instance, the unavailability of enough nurses increases medical errors, death rates, higher morbidity rates, and death rates. The author explains that nurses experience dissatisfaction, burnout, and increased patient death rates and inability to rescue rates than hospitals with decreased patient-to-nurse ratios in healthcare facilities where the patient-to-nurse ratio is high. Therefore, it is evident that the shortage of nurses has a tremendous negative impact on the vulnerable population.
How can Nurse Leaders Approach Nursing Care that Involves the Care of the Geriatric Patient
Capezuti, E., Boltz, M., Cline, D., Dickson, V. V., Rosenberg, M. C., Wagner, L., & Nigolian, C. (2012). Nurses improving care for health-system elders–A model for optimizing the geriatric nursing practice environment. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21(21-22), 3117-3125. Web.
The authors of this article explain the relationship between the implementation of evidence-based practices and a positive nurse practice environment (NPE). Moreover, the contribution of Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) program components to an optimistic geriatric NPE is clarified. The authors explain NPE as a system-level intervention meant to enhance the safety of patients. Additionally, certain population factors influence how nurses perceive their practice and patient outcomes.
In this article, the authors present geriatric model implementation in relation to NICHE and NPE program components. These are the models supporting the ability of hospitals to incorporate the understanding of geriatric knowledge into practice efficiently. The authors argue that NICHE is the best senior model in the hospital membership recruitment as well as being involved in geriatric hospital programming.
This article helps students understand that even though the senior model requires nurses to input data, NICHE majors on the perception of the care environment for geriatric practice. Moreover, NICHE studies in healthcare facilities show that quality geriatric care needs NPE where all processes and hospital structures focus on different patient needs. Therefore, the realization of the evidence-based model that focuses on exceptional requirements of elderly people’s medication needs NICHE programs that act as the hub of technical resources and catalysts among activities dedicated to geriatric quality care.
The Importance of Inter-Professional Collaboration to Address the Needs of Vulnerable Populations
Nies, M. A., Lim, W. Y. A., Fanning, K., & Tavanier, S. (2016). Importance of interprofessional healthcare for vulnerable refugee populations. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 18(5), 941-943. Web.
The authors explain how the growth of vulnerable populations has increased in the U.S. The majority of these people are refugees entering the country. According to the author, these people suffer from various sicknesses such as chronic heart problems and a plethora of diseases such as depression, hypertension, and obesity. These people contract some of these diseases as they settle in different environments. Due to the increased lack of information, health services are scarce among the refugee population. The authors explain various barriers that healthcare professionals and refugees face when trying to seek healthcare services. These comprise of the inability to communicate effectively and failure to understand the referral processes, and sometimes the healthcare professionals are not familiar with the patient’s language and culture. Therefore, the authors aim at identifying whether inter-professional collaboration comprising dieticians, pharmacists, and nurses can bridge the healthcare gap between individualized medication and refugee requirements.
This article is an important source because it enables learners to understand the importance of the inter-professional collaboration of healthcare professionals. For instance, workers from diverse locations can offer comprehensive services to the refugees so that they can secure the best healthcare services. Moreover, inter-professional teams link the gap between different medical practitioners such as dieticians, pharmacists, and nurses. The inter-professional collaboration further creates a chance for medical practitioners to interact when they differ to meet the requirements of refugees best. This is because every professional has a different culture. Thus, they will interact and work efficiently with one another.
The authors argue that inter-professional collaboration is advantageous to the community. This is because the senior population in integrated healthcare needs understanding in three areas: inter-organizational collaboration, inter-professional practice, and geriatrics. Such a mix needs a team approach and efficient association among tertiary, secondary, and primary community services, thus bringing optimal care to the vulnerable refugee population.