Future of nursing discussion 4

Please respond to the discussion and respond to the peer discussions

DQ1

Choose one legislator on the state or federal level who is also a nurse, and discuss the importance of their role as advocate for improving health care delivery. What specific bill(s) have they sponsored or supported that has/have influenced health care?

DQ2

Discuss how the CMS reimbursement rules for never events required a shift in the patient care delivery model in inpatient facilities.

Peer DQ1

Erin Murphy has been a nurse since 1984 and has served five terms in
the House of Representatives for the state of Minnesota. She has spent
much of her career working to ensure people have access to health
care. Prior to being elected into public office, she worked as the
executive director of the Minnesota Nurses’ Association, where
she was successful in passing MinnesotaCare, which is a health
insurance program for workers with low-to-moderate income that are not
able to purchase private insurance (Szulecki, 2017).

Nursing has allowed Erin to be a better advocate for health. In
order to pass MinnesotaCare, she understood the impact nurses play an
important role in patient health and organized multiple nurses to
testify in support of the program (Szulecki, 2017).

Upon election into public office, she authored Health Care Homes, a
legislative policy that expanded access to care that was affordable.
The policy was enacted in 2008. This policy is based on a medical home
model that links primary care to wellness and prevention as well as
self-management and community services. It is aimed to assist the
chronically ill and others with complex conditions (Szulecki, 2017).

Other issues she has worked on during her service include:
women’s health, affordable childcare, greater health care access
for employees of schools, etc. Her current work includes a bill that
would establish a public health insurance option for all Minnesota
residents, and she is also campaigning for governor (Szulecki, 2017).

Being a nurse has offered Erin Murphy a unique perspective on health
care. She has witnessed first-hand the challenges that patients
experience to gain access to and utilize coverage. She also cared for
her mother, who had small cell lung cancer. She observed how her
mother, who had quality health insurance, still had to fight with
insurance companies to gain access to the care that she needed. All of
this experience has contributed to her work, and she also actively
tries to recruit nurses to work in public office (Szulecki, 2017).

Szulecki, D. (2017). Nurse in the legislature. American
Journal of Nursing, 117(4): 68-69. doi: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515241.67042.09

Peer DQ2

Nurses play an important role in the health care setting as
they
make up almost 3 million workers within the healthcare
setting making them a predominant
figure in the health care
setting. Their influence is not always within a
hospital or
medical setting but it can also be at a legislative
level
considering some nurses make their way to positions as
legislators at the state
or federal level.

Congresswoman Diane Black is an example of a federal
legislator
for the Tennessee’s 6^th district. She was originally
a
nurse and has over 40 years of experience working in the health
care field
which has helped her to have the knowledge needed as a
congresswoman to help
reform and change issues with our current
health care environment
(Black.House.gov, 2018). For example, in
2011 Congresswoman Black had
legislation sign into a law a repeal
to Obamacare which saved taxpayers $13
billion (Black.House.gov,
2018). Her specific health care knowledge gives her
insight into
what people face when they are seeking medical care and
what
changes should be made to help them at the congressional level.

Black.House.gov. (2018). About U.S. Congressman Diane
Black.
Retrieved from: https://black.house.gov/about

Peer DQ3

Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas is an
experienced politician and nurse. She has over 23 years serving in
congress and 60 years as a nurse. Most off her nursing career was
spent working within the Veterans Affairs. She was appointed chief
psychiatric nurse and then was appointed director of the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While working at the
VA she noticed how horrible and unproductive the conditions where
and thought there had to have been a better way to provide care. She
knew that there was no way she was going to be able to make any
changes at the level she was at since everything was running from
the top down. She knew she had to do more if she wanted to see any
changes take place within the healthcare circuit she was working.

She worked closely with the Obama
administration in support the Affordable Care Act, she supports
Medicaid and Medicare. Also, she has authored and co-sponsored bills
that support nurses, women, and families afflicted by mental health
issues. There are really many other bills but her primary focus when
it comes to health care are Medicare and Medicaid.

Reference:

Daniels, J. Z. (2015, July 1).
Minority nurse. Retrieved September 3, 2018, from Minoritynurse.com
website: https://minoritynurse.com/from-the-bedside-to-the-…

U.S. representative Eddie Bernice
Johnson representing the 30th district of Texas. (n.d.). Retrieved
September 3, 2018, from ebjohnson.house.gov website: https://ebjohnson.house.gov/issues/health-care

Peer DQ4

Rep. Karen Bass, APRN, D-Calif. In November
2016, Congresswoman Bass earned her fourth term representing
California’s 33rd congressional district. Within the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs, Congresswoman Bass serves as a ranking member of
the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and
International Organizations. She is also a member of the House
Judiciary Committee and serves as the Congressional Black Caucus’
second vice chair for the 115th Congress. Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi chose Congresswoman Bass to serve on the Steering and Policy Committee.

Congresswoman Bass is an advanced practice registered nurse,
previously serving as a physician assistant, nurse and instructor at
Keck School of Medicine of USC in Los Angeles.

As a former Physician Assistant, Karen saw firsthand how people in
Los Angeles and across the country struggled to secure basic health
care. High costs kept them from pursuing the care they needed and
treatable conditions like hypertension and diabetes became much worse
because they were not treated early.

It is because of her experience that Karen has been such a strident
advocate for healthcare coverage for all Americans. In Congress, Karen
is a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act because it has
provided health insurance to over 46,000 of her constituents who did
not have health coverage before the law and has cut the number of
uninsured Californians in her Congressional district in half. That is
one of the reasons why she has voted over 50 times against Republican
attempts to repeal or undermine the law.

The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and it is ensuring
that Americans’ health coverage is focused on patients and not
insurance companies by allowing young adults to stay on their
parent’s plan until they are 26 and stopping insurance companies
from denying Americans coverage because they have a pre-existing
condition. And because of the law insurance companies can no longer
have life-time caps on coverage, meaning they cannot remove people
from health insurance when they need it the most. Karen wants to
expand and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and support the
healthcare workers across the country who are benefitting from the law.

In California, Karen is making it a top priority to make sure that
Angelenos are taking advantage of healthcare programs available to
them. Karen has worked to provide funds to Los Angeles’
community clinics to hire and train outreach and enrollment workers to
help Angelenos sign up for the new healthcare programs, and she
continues to host healthcare resource fairs to connect residents to
healthcare providers.

Reference

Health Care.(2015). Karen, Bass. Retrieved from http://www.karenbass.com/health_care

Peer DQ5

Erin Murphy is a representative for
the state of Minnesota. She had worked in the medical field for
years before pursing her role as a member of the Minnesota Nurses
Association. She served for 14 years with the Minnesota Nurses
Association where her passion during her tenure was to improve
health care services. She was instrumental in the implementation of
the Minnesota Care program that afforded low to moderate income
families with health insurance coverage. She later pursued seat in
the House of Representative where her passion again was to improve
affordable health care coverage and care. Her personal experience
with her mother’s illness was her inspiration to further
improve health care coverage and care. She described the challenges
that she faced while caring for her ill mother that despite the
adequate healthcare coverage she often still had to fight the
insurance company to get the needed care for her mother. She was
instrumental again in reforming the health care coverage for the
citizens in Minnesota and gave rise to the use of health care homes.
She has continued to monitor its progress and has utilized its
success in improved outcomes for individuals with chronic health
conditions as well as the affordability and health care cost
savings. She has also worked on other issues such as affordable
childcare, women’s health, health care for school employees,
and other infrastructure projects (Szulecki, 2017). Erin also
promotes for nurses to take part in government offices as she
stated,” that the fundamental nursing skills like
listening and problem-solving translate well into politics.
What’s special about what [nurses] do is that we have to act
when we’re taking care of patients. We don’t get to
say, ‘This is hard for me, I’m not going to do
it.’ We are in a position to make the best decisions we can
given the circumstances we face. And I think that is a skill and a
value that we have walked away from in our political debate
(Szulecki, 2017).” She has served five terms as a
legislator and is now currently running for the government office of
Minnesota. Her demeanor and dedication to service demonstrates the
viability of the nursing profession.

Reference:

Szulecki, D., (2017). Nurse in the
Legislature. American Journal of Nursing, Vol 117:4,
p68-69. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515241.67042.09

Peer DQ6

Eddie
Bernice Johnson is one of the state and federal legislators. Eddie
Bernice Johnson is from the state of Texas and is on her
13^th term serving as a congress representative and
representing Texas’s 30th congressional district in the United
States. Johnson has been advocating for the healthcare act and has
helped in ensuring that a considerable number of Americans gain
access to the necessary and needed care. Johnson in one instance
participated in demonstrations in attempts to advocate for
healthcare act following an attempt by the Republicans to have the
act repealed (Act, F. I. R. S. T, 2014).

In
addition, to that, she has sponsored a number of bills with the
Veteran’s Medical Personnel Recruitment and Retention act of
2009 being one of them (Johnson, DeLauro, & Slaughter, 2015).
This bill was raised for a
numb
er
of reasons which included the need to streamline the payment system
for better and ease of comprehension and use. More so, she had an
objective of ensuring that there exist incentives for retired
employees and as a consequent, motivated the other healthcare
practitioners to deliver services to patients in the optimal
approach conceivable. This led to increased staff retention and
reduction of staff turn-over and resignation rates following the
retirement benefit based encouragement. The bill was equally
intended to aid in augmenting the education benefits for all new
hired Veterinary Administrators as well as the currently working
health care providers. The bill plays a crucial part in ensuring
that the healthcare providers gain the propensity to learn on the
trends in healthcare sector.

Further,
the bill facilitated the delivery of clarifications on the
Veterinary Administrators regulations regarding work schedule and
overtime. The bill also eases the process of hiring and retaining
nurses by the Veterinary Administrators.

References