himeshsingh: Nurses Forum Debates Importance of Chronic v Acute Health Care ...

Monday, November 19, 2012

Nurses Forum Debates Importance of Chronic v Acute Health Care ...

Ever since the Health Care Act reform became a point of contention in this year?s heated presidential debate and election race, affordable health care automatically became more of a discussion matter across the country. In mid-July a professionals? forum convened to debate the subject, as well as to highlight the importance of quality in health care services. The DNPC-sponsored forum titled The House Nursing Caucus and the Dean?s Nursing Policy Coalition took place on July 19, in Washington D.C., at the Rayburn House convention center. It was an educational briefing meet-up, attended by the members of the DNPC and their deans, as well as two co-chairs from the 112^th Congressional House Nursing Caucus.

The topics the attendees and speakers broached on spanned far and wide and covered issues such as the promotion and improvement of the end-results of the healthcare process, how the roles of nurse teams are changing with respect to preventive care practices, and how the education that nurses benefit from should be supported by the federal government. To boot, the gathering also stressed the importance of ongoing educational program for nursing personnel who are already active members of the workforce. At the moment, speakers stated, the crux of the American healthcare system is acute care, which leaves the issue of prevention up for grabs. Research undertaken at NursingDegrees.orgreveals that nurses? programs are improving and being constantly updated to match the requirements of real-life patients. However, since all hospital and clinic patients go through the hands of a nurse before being diagnosed and treated by a doctor, it?s important to invest in more programs, as well as in making them more readily available to patients across the country.

Other speakers took on the delicate issue of financially underprivileged communities, where access to the services of aptly qualified nurses is essential, irrespective of whether it takes place in a major hospital or at the local community clinic. When chronic illness strikes among the poor and homeless, medical disasters loom right around the corner. The only solution to such predicaments is to invest more material resources into chronic care, which stands to benefit sufferers of diabetes and other chronic afflictions. The way the U.S. health care system is structured at the moment, patients are not being encouraged to educate themselves on their own health needs. What is more, they are not being told that they, too, have a say and an important part to play in their own healing process.