Current Reform and Effects on Nursing Practice and the Nurse’s Role

Current Reform and Effects on Nursing Practice and the Nurse’s Role

Population health issues change over time due to lifestyle changes, exposure to new risks, health access, and other factors. Effective response to health concerns requires profound changes in health practice and care models to ensure patients receive care that matches their needs. Health care delivery models commonly focus on access, payment structures, and strategies to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Due to their central role in patient care, nurses should understand models emerging from health care reforms and restructuring. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine current changes to reform the U.S. health care delivery system and the nurse’s role within the changing environment.

Current Reform and Effects on Nursing Practice and the Nurse’s Role

Reforms seeking to improve care access to rural communities are critical for addressing health care disparity. One such reform is the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) program. As a state loan repayment program, NHSC promotes physician practice in rural communities by encouraging providers to work in rural areas. According to Waldrop and Gee (2022), clinicians under the NHSC program can receive up to $50,000 in federally-funded loan repayments to encourage them to provide primary, dental, and mental health care in rural communities. This reform is founded on the principle that high student debts are why many health practitioners opt to work in urban areas instead of less populated rural settings.

Health care reforms significantly affect the nursing practice and the nurse’s role and responsibility. As a global health concern, health care staff shortages decrease access to care in rural areas, leading to poor health outcomes (Smith, 2022). The implication is that encouraging nursing professionals to work in rural communities through the NHSC is essential for higher outcomes in nursing practice. The program will reduce inequality in terms of health professionals, risk factors, and disease burden that rural residents experience. The nurse’s role and responsibility are also affected by reforms. Typical outcomes include expanded nurse practitioner autonomy and a higher responsibility to lead change in rural settings. Autonomy expands the nurse’s scope of practice, while change leadership helps organizations to implement innovative practices to address health challenges affecting rural communities.

Effects of Quality Measures and Pay-for-Performance on Patient Outcomes

Nursing professionals should have an innate desire to achieve high patient outcomes. Quality measures quantify care processes, outcomes, and systems to determine practitioners’ and organizations’ ability to provide high-quality care (CMS.gov, 2023). Their result-oriented nature guides nursing practitioners in improving patient outcomes by bettering procedures to maximize value. Mathes et al. (2019) described pay-for-performance as a model that rewards health care providers for meeting predefined quality targets. Hence, the model motivates health professionals to increase care quality and efficacy to achieve high rewards. While doing so, high patient outcomes are achieved since high care quality that prevents readmissions, health complications, and morality is a foundation of optimal patient outcomes.

Quality measures and pay-for-performance foster outcome-driven and value-based care. In this case, they ensure nursing procedures and workplace culture are designed to maximize outcomes and ensure patients get the value of care. For instance, teamwork and innovative practices to reduce hospital-acquired infections maximize value by reducing costs associated with treating such infections (Haque et al., 2020). Accordingly, nurses are expected to embrace procedures that maximize value and be open to change as situations necessitate. Their responsibilities also expand since they must lead change and implement evidence-based practice (EBP), among other strategies for improving the value of care. The expanded role ensures that nurses’ responsibilities are not restricted to primary caregiving. Instead, nurses serve as leaders and innovators to ensure health care services align with patients’ expectations