Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs
QUESTION
Discuss the access, cost, and quality of quality environments, as well as recent quality initiatives (See Chapter 24 and Table 24.1). Student is to reflect on the relationship between quality measures and evaluation and role development. In addition, describe this relationship and note how the role of the APN might change without effective quality measures.
Format: APA 7th Edition
Source: Advanced Practice Nursing
Essentials for Role Development
by Joel, Lucille A 4th edition.
Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs
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Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs
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Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs
Introduction
The quality environment implies when patients access quality health care regardless of the attached cost. Quality healthcare can thus be attained by offering sustainable care plans, services, and treatment by expert healthcare providers, reducing poor health. An increment in demand for quality health care by patients/clients creates the need to establish a quality health care system that entails cost-effective, affordable, and safe services for all patients regardless of their status. This is because lack of health equality in most cases leads to poor outcomes among the less privileged clients as they cannot afford all the services related to their current health conditions (Joel, 2017).
In a nutshell, the system should fulfill the healthcare standards to be termed as quality. There has been an increasing demand for quality healthcare services due to the rising cases of chronic diseases, the aging populace, and complicated patient conditions. This means a great need to have well-focused, educated, and trained clinicians/physicians to help establish a seamless workforce (Joel, 2017). The increment in the demand for quality healthcare services results in a shortage of healthcare practitioners, thus the need to recruit more overtime to fill the gaps found in the healthcare sector. APN is one of the highest interests to help cur this shortage and fill the different healthcare availability gaps and demands of primary care practitioners.
APNs have an integral role in offering cost-effective and quality care, and thus they should be offered all the guidelines and uproot to execute their tasks effectively (Schober, 2018). Failure to create excellent working conditions and the needed support may lead to not achieving the best healthcare outcomes hence patient discontent. APNs can offer more family and patient-centered care in a holistic approach, fostering quality of care and better patient results. Also, APNs can offer preventive and corrective care, thus better quality and cost of healthcare services. In this case, APNs should be considered a vital part of patient care, and their grievances should be addressed to help ensure that the gaps in the healthcare system are filled by offering top-notch care (Land et al., 2019).
Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs
The milestones of a quality healthcare system are defined by offering quality health care to patients through access, offering treatment strategies, and suitable patient follow-ups to foster a quality and conducive environment. Quality means offering appropriate care to patients when they require it in a practical, affordable, and safe criterion. Access means the available services offered by well-qualified- skilled, and trained healthcare practitioners. Healthcare results and status are determined by a patient’s ability to access quality healthcare services during their care.
The underinsured and uninsured patients encounter vast difficulties accessing quality healthcare because they are restricted from accessing some services. They can also not afford the high fee attached to consultations, tests, and other services. This means that such less privileged patients are more likely to have poor healthcare outcomes, health deterioration, and minimal/no contentment. In this case, the vital access deliberations should be healthcare equity. APNs should be keen on justifying the benefits and needs of APN services in the health care set up at all levels (Joel, 2017).
The cost/ expense of healthcare is defined as the amount paid to healthcare practitioners. Optimum health is important to curb the advancement of diseases and reduce poor results. It is vital to measure the health system’s quality through resource availability, positive results, reduction in errors, and affordability of the health care services. Quality health care services can be termed services that have met the clients’ expectations. Healthcare services should be maximized to fulfill the patient’s needs and attain positive results. The efforts of clients, their families, the community, and health care providers/practitioners to collaborate in creating a quality environment in the system should be continuous. Upholding quality and a safe environment will impact the patients’ safety and welfare and affect the quality of health care offered to the patients.
The patient outcomes, satisfaction/ contentment, care of delivery, and effective and efficient healthcare are interconnected to quality improvement. The performance of a healthcare facility is determined by continuous upgrading and improvement of the healthcare setting. This leads to an increment in patient safety and contentment (Land et al., 2019). It is thus evident that a quality health care system and quality improvement/betterment have a deep interconnection. The quality initiatives incorporate quality improvement to attain a seamless healthcare system. Lastly, quality health care service ought to fulfill the standards of care to help attain positive patient results.
Relationship between quality measures and evaluation and role development
To foster quality of care and performance means that a continuous quality improvement of health care systems is required to achieve high-quality results. A quality examination should be undertaken to assess the attainment of the purpose, goals, and results of the services offered. Quality metrics are utilized to evaluate patient satisfaction and experience to ascertain patients’ health care. The quality measures align to offering quality care and patient encounter/contentment (Kampstra et al., 2018).
The quality measures are vital tools to determine the efficiency and quality of the health care system, patient safety, and patient outcome. To prevent medical errors, hospital-acquired infections, prevention of injuries and falls, bedsores, and other errors/infections, quality measures are undertaken to foster patient safety and attainment of better care. APNs thus play an integral role in examining the healthcare system by ensuring quality metrics and abiding by various standards of care (Kampstra et al., 2018). Health care experts are also required to offer solutions, treatment, and services to patients’ issues.
Nurses play an integral role in offering quality health care, and thus they should be equipped with vital skills to offer quality healthcare services. Also, APNs should comprehend their role in ensuring the quality and safety of patient care by reporting and sharing their skills, expertise, and knowledge (Joel, 2017). APNs also have a significant task of offering leadership in diagnosing aspects impacting cost and quality of healthcare performance and establishing plans to eradicate them. APNs also offer sustainable health care strategies and healthcare standards to help improve patient outcomes and are termed high-quality and cost-effective practitioners.
Nurses should be offered motivation, support, and a conducive work environment to uphold care and quality standards. A conducive working environment among nurses leads to increased health care services and work contentment and helps in reducing employee attrition. It is essential to highlight that satisfied health practitioners and patient care are related since content health providers execute their roles, hence offering quality care diligently (Schober, 2018). In this case, nurses and other health practitioners should be supported. Also, their efforts should be credited as they put endless efforts into caring for patients. this will boost their morale and hence the attainment of quality health care. On the other hand, de-motivated and discontent workers do not provide quality care, increasing attrition, poor patient care, and discontentment among patients.
How might the role of the APN change without effective quality measures?
APNs have a critical role in offering quality healthcare and ensuring that healthcare organizations’ activities run smoothly. The position of an APN may vary without effective quality measures as they offer high-quality and evidence-based care. Since APNs offer care to critically ill and high-equity patients, they can utilize quality standards to minimize the deterioration of patients’ health conditions (Joel, 2017). APNs also foster better patient outcomes and patient contentment by stating the guidelines and protocols to minimize harm to patients and stay at healthcare facilities. It is thus critical to note that without such quality measures, APNs may not undertake research and measures to better healthcare quality. Also, APNs may not be in a position to advocate for EBP in clinical settings, which will include kea to increment in admissions, readmissions, and hospital stays.
Conclusion
Access, cost, and quality are integral to the healthcare system. The healthcare services should be available to ensure all patients receive treatment and are on time and when in need. Ensuring that care is cost-effective is one of the ways of ensuring that patients can quickly seek medical attention without financial barriers. Offering quality care will foster better patient results and lead to a better patient experience hence contentment. The role of APNs is integral in fostering access to acre without quality actions. In this case, to foster better health care and life expectancy, we should utilize quality metrics; continuous use of quality measures should be a key objective in any healthcare facility as this helps in attaining better patient results. The measures increase patient satisfaction, patient safety, and outcomes and create better health care guidelines and procedures. A quality healthcare environment is defined as efficient, affordable, and accessible in offering patient care.
References
Joel, L. A. (2017). Advanced practice nursing: Essentials for role development. FA Davis.
Kampstra, N. A., Zipfel, N., van der Nat, P. B., Westert, G. P., van der Wees, P. J., & Groenewoud, A. S. (2018). Health outcomes measurement and organizational readiness support quality improvement: a systematic review. BMC health services research, 18(1), 1-14.
Land, K. J., Boeras, D. I., Chen, X. S., Ramsay, A. R., & Peeling, R. W. (2019). REASSURED diagnostics to inform disease control strategies, strengthen health systems and improve patient outcomes. Nature microbiology, 4(1), 46-54.
Schober, M. (2018). Global emergence of nurse practitioner/advanced practice nursing roles. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 30(4), 182-184.
Access, Cost, and Quality for APNs