Obama’s Deal with Hospitals – What Does It Mean for Nurses and Patients?

From boliston, via Flickr

On July 8, vice president Joe Biden announced that in striving to gain support for its health reform plan, the White House reached an agreement with the key hospital groups, including the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

The deal is a quid pro quo deal: according to the AHA Web site, the associations agreed they will not fight $155 billion in cuts in Medicare and Medicaid payments, in return for assurances that the cuts are linked to expanded coverage. Additionally, if health reform legislation turns out to include a public insurance plan, then hospitals will receive payments higher than the traditional Medicare and Medicaid rates. The idea is that losses from the reduced payments would be offset by insurance payments from the increased numbers of patients who will be covered. Hospitals will have fewer “pro bono” patients to deal with.

So how will this affect patient care and nursing services? […]

2016-11-21T13:25:15-05:00July 16th, 2009|health care policy, nursing perspective, nursing research, students|0 Comments
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Sexual Harassment by Doctors, and Signs of Growing Acceptance for HIPAA Privacy Laws

Here's an anonymous post from a new nurse graduate looking for advice about how to handle sexual harassment by a doctor. How would you advise her? And this post is a cautionary tale for all clinicians who've ever been tempted by curiosity about a patient: it describes just how easy it is for hospital information systems to detect when someone has violated HIPAA (short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy laws by accessing a patient's record when they shouldn't.

2016-11-21T13:25:50-05:00July 8th, 2009|nursing perspective, students|2 Comments
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New Nurses Blogging: The Dedicated, the Feisty, the Sleep-Deprived

Hospital by boliston / Adrian Boliston, via Flickr.

When I went looking for blogs by student nurses recently, I found plenty—but most appeared to be deserted, as if their authors had literally packed up and moved away after graduation. That’s understandable—and kind of a shame. Things can get interesting fast when one finds oneself suddenly working with real people in an ED or an ICU. Lucky for us, a few newly minted nurses are blogging on just that. (To comply with HIPAA regulations, most bloggers report that they alter patient details and scenarios.)

At Call Bells Make Me Nervous, Maha, “a shiny new nurse” (degree unspecified), blogs […]

2016-11-21T13:30:03-05:00May 8th, 2009|career, healthcare social media, nursing perspective, students|1 Comment
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For Nurses and Writers, Some Publications of Note

Clare #5 by fotologic / Jon Nicholls, via Flickr.

Here’s a selection of sites and publications that AJN readers interested in narrative and poetry (particularly as it relates to health care) and in well-crafted writing might find worth a visit.

The Nieman Narrative Digest, a biweekly “compendium of narrative journalism” moderated by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, presents often unusual, always riveting stories. Health care–related pieces are regularly featured. One recent selection, “Fixing Mr. Fix-It”  from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, describes the rehabilitation of a truck mechanic whose arms were severed in a terrible accident. […]

2016-11-21T13:34:43-05:00April 16th, 2009|students|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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