Health Care Reform: What’s In It for Nurses?

A relaxing and safe Fourth of July weekend from the AJN editors to all nurses in the U.S., whether you’re taking it easy or on the job!

A recent poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows rising popularity for the health care reform law. Many hard decisions still need to be made; innovation is more crucial than ever. Nurses who’d like a clearer sense of how the health care reform law may affect them in the coming years should have a look at “Health Care Reform: What’s In It for Nursing?” in our July edition. Written by AJN‘s emeritus editor-in-chief Diana Mason, it points out some of the new models of care the law promotes, models in which nurses play an increasingly important and vital role at every level. As often in the dynamic history of this country, there will be new kinds of opportunities for those who are ready for them.—JM, blog editor

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2016-11-21T13:16:55-05:00July 2nd, 2010|career, health care policy, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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What Lies Ahead? AACN Presidents Weigh In on Health Care Reform, Rapid Response Teams, and More

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

On my last day at the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ annual meeting last week in Washington, DC, I had a chance to speak with both Beth Hammer, whose term as president ended with the meeting, and Kristine Peterson, the new president. Our conversation ranged from how they felt about being president of such a large nursing organization to their views on health care reform and how rapid response teams are affecting the work environment of critical care nurses. You can hear the conversation free on AJN’s Web site: go to the Podcasts tab and click on Conversations. Or just click here (the download may take a minute or two).

And don’t miss my first post from the exhibit hall floor at the meeting (the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, or “the NTI”)  and my second post on a conversation with a critical care nurse about a bad staffing practice, which seems to have hit a nerve!

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2016-11-21T13:17:31-05:00May 24th, 2010|career, health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Wrapping Up the Health Care Journalists’ Meeting with Sebelius, Frieden, Pronovost, and Others

By Shawn Kennedy, interim editor-in-chief

So I got back from the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Chicago and a colleague asked, “How was the meeting?” I automatically said it was “good.” But then, I started to think about why I said that and what I’d found valuable—in brief, it’s networking and gaining new information.

I was looking for new information about the latest health issues—mostly about how the experts see health reform shaping up—and about any new issues or initiatives in health reporting. I attended sessions on how the new health reform legislation will affect hospitals (see my recent post on this) as well as state and local health agencies—but there were also presentations on monitoring food safety, lessons learned from H1N1, guidelines for writing about health guidelines, and patient safety advocacy; the new CDC director launched a report on state tobacco use (another post); and I watched a challenging but fascinating primer on health insurance financing from an actuary.

Some things I found worth noting:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying she will not stand by while some health insurance companies attempt to deny claims and push breast cancer patients off their plans. She commented, “It will be hand-to-hand combat if they try.” (See Reuters report for full story.)

Tom Frieden (CDC director) saying that increasing tobacco taxes is the single most effective tool to reduce tobacco use. (Yet taxes in South Carolina have been seven cents since 1977!)

Aida Giachello from the Midwest Latino Health […]

2016-11-21T13:18:02-05:00April 27th, 2010|health care policy|0 Comments
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Hospital Execs Assert They’re ‘Scared to Death’ by Reform Measures

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

On Friday, at the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) meeting in Chicago, I attended a session in which a panel of hospital executives discussed how their facilities would be affected by health care reform. They weren’t really sure of anything except that they’d probably lose money.

The panel included Richard Gamelli of Stritch School of Medicine and the Loyola University Health System, Jeffrey Hillebrand from NorthShore University HealthSystem, and Jim Skogsbergh from Advocate Health Care.

Skogsbergh was the most dire: “I’m scared to death about health care reform and I’m not sure how it will all shake out. The only thing I do expect is to that I’m going to get paid a lot less.” An attendee asked if hospitals would do better now that patients they cared for as charity patients would have health insurance under the new law. Gamelli answered that that depended on the insurance. Currently, he said, his facility is only reimbursed for 90% of costs incurred by Medicaid patients and 50% of those incurred by Medicare patients.

Where’s the innovation? The session was disappointing in that it was mostly about how these megahospital systems would deal with the financial implications. It would have been interesting to have a perspective from a small community hospital. And other than a program mentioned by Hillebrand to try to reduce hospital readmissions among patients with chronic disease, there seemed to be little focus on finding new approaches to cutting costs through improving quality.

2016-11-21T13:18:03-05:00April 26th, 2010|health care policy|0 Comments
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