Reflective Journal
The signing into law of the Affordable care act was initially meant to promote wellness as wells as introducing preventative measures as opposed to the earlier process that mainly focused on providing treatment to the sick. The Act however from my experience as a nurse, has put additional workload for us.
The quality of healthcare is be compromised as a result of the enactment of the act. This is mainly due to the fact that most the patients covered under the Obama care have no past experience on the healthcare system. Initially, most of the people used the medicals, private purchase and the insurance programs covered by the employer and thus most people were acquainted to the healthcare system. Some of the patients under the Obama care have health conditions that are complicated which makes the insurance company fear to cover them (Dertz, 2014). These patients can now be able to access health care when their health is already deteriorated. These patients are a source of stress for the nurses. I now spend lot of time on one patient and this may compromise the quality of health care services due to the increased number of patients that I must care for.
The affordable care act focuses more on the out patients as opposed to the inpatients leading to the reduction in the number of inpatient nurses which may put additional workload on the inpatient nurses. The outpatient program requires the nurses to visit patients at their homes which are an additional workload for the nurses (Regan & Bloomberg News (Firm), 2013). If I were one of the policy developers I would first take an analysis of the resources available in the healthcare system and the number of nurses available. My main goal now is to engage the policy makers in finding solution to the problems that we are facing as nurses.
References
Dertz, A. (2014). Obamacare’s Killer Burden on Nurses. time.com. Retrieved from http://time.com/88535/obamacares-killer-burden-on-nurses/
Regan, T., & Bloomberg News (Firm). (2013). Obama courts celebrities to push health care. New York: Bloomberg.