Professional Nurse's Role in the Business of Healthcare - Essay Example

"Professional Nurse's Role in the Business of Healthcare" is a marvelous example of a paper on care.
One of the main reasons a nurse should play a vital role in the healthcare professions outside of her duties as a nurse is because she or he is the one who has to work closely with patients on a daily basis. In more ways than what is medically necessary, a nurse gets to know a patient on a deeper level than some doctors or even some physician's assistants might.

However, this paper seeks to also address the financial aspect of nursing care and how patients may actually benefit from nurses being more involved in the balance sheets that often determine the level of care a patient receives. Also, it gives a nurse the ability to gauge the differences in the way patients with lower levels and higher levels of health care coverage are managed and cared for later research studies.

Nurses should have a clear understanding of the financial aspects of healthcare because their knowledge and closeness in working with patients can help pave the way to the future hospital and clinical policy planning and management. "Strong majorities of opinion leaders said that nurses should have more influence in reducing medical errors, improving patient safety, improving quality of care, promoting wellness, expanding preventive care, improving healthcare efficiency, reducing costs, coordinating care throughout the healthcare system, helping the system adapt to an aging population, and increasing access to care," says Dr. Susan Hassmiller. (e.g., Hassmiller, “Nursing Leadership,” et al). This financial knowledge impacts the quality of nursing care of patients in health care settings because of the skyrocketing costs of healthcare. Nurses need to know how to help control costs, justify expenses, and understand budgeting and what is the impact of reduced state funding on poor and low-income patients, who may potentially not receive adequate medical care because of financial distress. There is a relatively new concept floating around called “Bundled Medical Payments.” The models are said to work toward coordinating medical care among different providers for more streamlined responsibility and to also save millions in costs by submitting a no-pay claim, then taking funds from a bundled services payment that has already been set aside for the coordinated care.

The responsibility for keeping staff informed of the economic impact of providing nursing care to clients belongs to the nurse manager or department head nurse. The reason why is because the nursing manager is the liaison between nursing staff and hospital administration executives who must help weigh out the balance between what constitutes proper care and the costs of that care and also must make sure there are quality care and price control mechanisms in place at the same time.