The American healthcare system is fragmented, as its elements such as private and public practice, service providers and their patients, training, and citizen’s needs are not sufficiently connected. Such gaps, the lack of cooperation between structures, leads to the fact that the patient does not receive the necessary treatment. Moreover, the cost of services is high, as it requires additional research and procedures that could be prevented with mutual support between elements.
Consequently, health care becomes expensive and almost inaccessible for the population. The need for healthcare advancement led to the formulation of the IOM report and state action coalition teams across the U.S. Their activity has led to the evolution in healthcare to address the citizens’ current needs by equipping providers with the most robust training and skills.
The need to improve healthcare due to quality and cost issues has remained persistent in the recent past and provoked the appearance of IOM reports and state action campaigns and coalitions. According to Hassmiller and Reinhard (2019), this report transpired to reform the U.S. healthcare system by exploiting training and policy formulation opportunities in ensuring affordable, accessible, patient-centered, and quality services to Americans. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative investigated existing limitations and barriers in the provision of medical assistance. The group developed its understanding of how health care can be improved and become accessible.
They proposed changing the medical system, shifting the focus to accessibility for all population segments, improving the nation’s health, and preventing diseases. Moreover, their vision involves the medical personnel’s performance in the way to ensure compassionate care provision. Thus, preventive measures and first aid will come to the fore, and simultaneously, cooperation and coordination between various professionals will be the standard.
The IOM report includes four powerful messages which recommend changes for health care. First, nursing practices must be consistent with all the knowledge they receive during training. Second, nurses’ preparation can be improved through the education system’s modernization (Thaler & Menkovski, 2019). Third, in the hierarchy of U.S. medical staff, nurses should become equal partners of physicians. Four, there is a need to improve the information infrastructure that determines the quality of organizations’ recruitment and policy development.
These central messages have had an incredible impact on the United States’ healthcare system because they changed it in many ways. For instance, data collection and storage have improved over time, strengthening research and decision-making during policy formulation (Consoli, Recupero & Petković, 2019). Further, these messages revolutionized the existing system, which made nurses and healthcare providers operate in a vacuum. Today, there is rampant interprofessional cooperation at the workplace that has led to better quality care for patients and the United States citizens.
Each state has its action campaigns, the main task of which is ensuring cooperation between nurses, health providers, business representatives, and educators. The goal they strive to achieve is to improve health care and strengthen nurses’ position to ensure equality among staff. As crucial actors towards realizing the IOM report’s vision, these campaigns help restructure and improve healthcare right from the grassroots level (Brewington, 2021).
For instance, these organizations find ways to improve care access, increase nursing diversity, transform nursing education, foster interprofessional collaboration, promote nursing leadership, and collect workforce data (Consoli et al., 2019). The initiatives act as the IOM report’s steering power by offering advisory regarding state healthcare systems and collecting data that mostly inform policy formulation.
Texas has a few challenges, including inadequate insurance coverage, unavailability of some services, and lack of culturally competent care. For instance, it becomes difficult for state coalitions to ensure equity and quality healthcare in minimum insurance coverage areas. However, Texas teams always act in liaison with community health workers to ensure that the most vulnerable get preferential attention from donors during insurance donation initiatives. One of the IOM report’s goals for health care is to increase practitioners’ number and the quality of their education. Thus, other issues that are currently hampering healthcare advancement in Texas are the low number of graduates and the low gender and cultural diversity.
Nevertheless, the state has already achieved some success in overcoming these problems. For example, the Consortium to Advance Baccalaureate Nursing Education in Texas (CABNET) has drawn more people’s attention to nursing programs. One more Texas initiative is Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN), which made many students enroll in nursing courses (Power et al., 2019). Through this initiative, Texas state has emerged to be one of the states with the highest ratio of nurses per 100,000 people. Moreover, APIN has initiated a diversity mentorship and provides scholarships to attract students. Consequently, services are easily available and reduce overstraining of healthcare workers.
Nursing Residences in Rural Organizations (NRRO) is an initiative in my state which has been of great significance in the state’s healthcare sector. Through collaboration between nurses and AARP Foundation, a restriction on Advance Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) was signed against to enable them to work remotely and provide care without physical meeting with clients (Powers et al., 2019). Regarding the IOM Report, this is one way of making healthcare easily accessible. Patients do not have to drive for long distances to receive prescriptions through teleconferencing or other means the practitioner deems appropriate. There has been a significant boost since nurses have extra time to attend to more patients.
Conclusively, the IOM report will continue to inform current and future healthcare systems across the U.S. With its main messages revolving around nurses’ empowerment through education, making healthcare accessible, and ensuring quality healthcare, many states will continue to formulate policies that advance healthcare. In my condition, the main challenge in healthcare advancement is inadequate healthcare insurance. However, state action campaigns and initiatives always ensure that all uninsured persons are assisted in other means.
References
Brewington, J. G. (2021). The journey: Nurses on board coalition preparation and support workgroup. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 45(1), 18-25. Web.
Consoli, S., Recupero, D. R., & Petković, M. (Eds.). (2019). Data science for healthcare: Methodologies and applications (1st ed.). Springer.
Hassmiller, S. B., & Reinhard, S. (2019). The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AARP Story: How our partnership advanced the future of nursing. Nurse Leader, 17(5), 399-403. Web.
Powers, S., Claus, N., Jones, A. R., Lovelace, M. R., Weaver, K., & Watts, P. (2019). Improving transition to practice: Integration of advanced cardiac life support into a baccalaureate nursing program. Journal of Nursing Education, 58(3), 182-184. Web.
Thaler, S., & Menkovski, V. (2019). The role of deep learning in improving healthcare. In Consoli S., Reforgiato Recupero D., Petković M. (Eds.), Data Science for Healthcare (pp. 75-116). Springer.