Introduction
The Chief Nursing Officer would like to inform all nurses that the hospital intends to make some changes in line with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Implementation of the Act has resulted in the introduction of novel specialties in the nursing field (Harrington et al., 2012). The specialties include informatics specialist, primary care providers, care coordinator, and nurse cooperative facilitator. The hospital intends to train nurses in these specialties to ensure the provision of quality healthcare services.
Target Audience
This memo targets all nurses who work at Kendall Regional Medical Center. The Chief Nursing Officer would like to assure nurses that they will not lose their jobs. Additionally, he calls upon the nurses to take the initiative to ensure that they acquire skills in at least one of the new specialties. The objective of the introduction of new specialties is to improve the quality of the healthcare services, which is in congruent with the hospital’s mission. The Chief Nursing Officer wishes to reiterate that the nurses stand to benefit from the changes as they will help them to advance their career.
Internal Policy Changes
The hospital plans to come up with policies that will facilitate on-the-job training to equip nurses with skills in primary care. Besides, the hospital management has learned that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has resulted in an increase in demand for telehealth (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2013). Thus, the hospital will come up with a technology policy, which will make sure that nurses acquire technological skills. The hospital intends to make it compulsory for all nurses to have technical experience to ease operations.
Regarding specialties like informatics, care coordinator, and nurse cooperative facilitator, the hospital will sponsor three nurses to train in these areas. The hospital administrator will liaise with the board of directors to initiate policy changes to cater for the same. The hospital will come up with rules that recommend establishment of a kitty to fund the training of the nurses. The Chief Nursing Officer would like to request interested nurses to submit their applications. The management will select candidates based on qualification and experience. Plans are underway to change employment policies to ensure that the hospital recruits nurses with the requisite technical and specialty skills in the future.
The specialty of informatics will entail storage and processing of information. The hospital plans to create an electronic health record system that will store the data of the patients. Besides, the hospital administrator will work in liaison with nurses to formulate policies to facilitate sharing of information amid nurses and physicians working in different departments. The Chief Nursing Officer would like to inform nurses that they will play a critical role in policy formulation.
Impacts on Nursing Procedures
The new changes will have copious effects on the nursing procedures. The introduction of telehealth will require nurses to offer assistance to patients remotely (Auerbach et al., 2013). Affordable Care Act has made it possible for patients to receive healthcare services from the comfort of their homes. Patients do not have to remain in the hospital once their conditions are manageable (Miller, 2012).
Therefore, the nurses will have to contact the patients and serve them via teleconference. Besides, some nurses will have to visit patients at their homes to see how they are fairing. The hospital administrator will make adjustments to the working schedule to ensure that nurses have time to attend the training. The workload for every nurse is bound to increase due to the departure of the three nurses who will go for training.
The introduction of the specialty of informatics will have a significant impact on the nursing procedures regarding decision-making practices. Nurses will embrace the culture of evidence-based decision-making practices. They will make decisions based on information gathered from different departments. Moreover, nurses will maintain constant communication with one another to ensure that they have adequate information regarding different patients.
Influence on Patient Care
The specialty of informatics coupled with the adoption of technology will change the way nurses handle patients. Nurses will have adequate information regarding particular patients, therefore being in a position to offer quality services (Auerbach, 2012). Additionally, nurses will manage to deal with diverse patients as they can retrieve their information quickly. In other words, the nurses will guarantee constant care to patients. It will help to enhance the quality of health services that Kendall Regional Medical Center delivers.
The introduction of telehealth services will not only reduce congestion in the hospital but also enable patients to receive healthcare services from home. It will be easy for nurses to take care of patients from home without visiting them regularly. In return, the hospital will have adequate nurses at all times to attend to emergency cases.
Change Implementation
The new specialties affect the nursing profession only. Therefore, only the nurses will have to undertake the training. To ensure that operations in the hospital run smoothly, the Chief Nursing Officer will liaise with the hospital administrator to create a training program. The nurses will train in succession to ensure availability of staff at every nursing station. The primary care training will take four months. All nurses will have to attend a two hours lesson every day. The hospital will offer three lessons every day to ensure that nurses who are not on duty have a chance to participate. For the nurses who will train in informatics, care coordinator, and nurse cooperative facilitator, the hospital will facilitate their enrollment to medical school.
The hospital plans to open a computer lab. The nurses are encouraged to visit the lab whenever they are not on duty. The hospital will hire a computer specialist to train nurses in diverse telehealth applications. The objective is to ensure that our nurses can offer telemedicine services without difficulties. Acquisition of technological skills will also enhance the overall efficiency of the hospital. The hospital aspires to help the nurses advance their scope of practice and career.
Conclusion
Enactment of the Affordable Care Act has resulted in demand for novel specialties in the nursing field. Kendall Regional Medical Center will create policies to facilitate training of nurses to equip them with the requisite skills. All nurses must acquire competencies in the provision of primary care. Besides, nurses should ensure that they learn technological skills.
The hospital management looks forward to your cooperation.
References
Auerbach, D. (2012). Will NP workforce grow in the future?: New forecast and implications for healthcare delivery. Medical Care, 50(7), 606-610.
Auerbach, D., Staiger, D., Muench, U., & Buerhaus, P. (2013). The nursing workforce in an era of health care reform. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(1), 1470-1472.
Harrington, C., Ng, T., LaPlante, M., & Kaye, S. (2012). Medicaid home- and community-based services: Impact of the Affordable Care Act. Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 24(2), 169-187.
Mason, D., Leavitt, J., & Chaffee, M. (2013). Policy and politics in nursing and healthcare. New York: Elsevier.
Miller, E. (2012). The Affordable Care Act and long-term care: Comprehensive reform or just tinkering around the edges? Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 24(2), 101-117.