Health Care Delivery Models and Nursing Practice

Running head: HEALTH CARE DELIVERY MODELS AND NURSING PRACTICE 1
Health Care Delivery models and nursing practice
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University
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HEALTH CARE DELIVERY MODELS AND NURSING PRACTICE
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Introduction
The health care delivery system in the United States has undergone rapid changes that
emphasis more on population health, quality of service, effectiveness, and efficiency of the
services delivered. These reforms have helped a lot in tackling health challenges faced in the
United States. The United States has invested more in health services than other advanced
countries, and that why its health system is so far the best as per international standards. Nurses
have played a vital role in these reforms and elevated from caregivers to care integrators. This
paper will review changes introduced to reform the United States health care delivery system,
healthcare laws, and nursing roles and responsibility in health care delivery.
Emerging HealthCare law
One thing that facilitated these reforms in the United States was a law passed in
Massachusetts in 2006, which enabled near-universal health insurance coverage. This success in
Massachusetts law showed that it was possible to achieve universal coverage with state support.
Massachusetts reform policy was about the insurance purchase plan, and it was mandatory to
purchase failure to which one would be fined (Glied & Altman, 2017).
Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, was sought to
address lack of insurance coverage, enable less expensive coverage, and increase access to health
care. There was a high penalty to all those uninsured. ACA improved quality and reduced costs
by allowing low pay in hospitals for many health services. Also, it permitted insurance of your
children by your plan until they are 26 years.
There are several ways the Affordable Care Act will affect nursing practices. They
include the increase in the demand of registered nurses in the United States compared to other

HEALTH CARE DELIVERY MODELS AND NURSING PRACTICE
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professions. This boosts financial standing since there will be an increase in payment of
Medicare services to all nurses as certified midwife pay will rise by 36%. The total nursing
population will increase because a significant population would like to advance training in
nursing (Carter, 2019).
They have provided implementation to allow nursing students to get high loan amounts
from the government. These loans had not been reviewed for a long time. Despite the increase in
higher education costs, many students could not afford to live a comfortable life in training.
Nursing students will now be able to access these loans to meet current training costs (Fiscella &
Sanders, 2016). Besides, the law set aside money for pilot clinical initiatives test that will require
the services of trained nurses. These changes will involve sending qualified nurses to poor
mothers to educate them on good health during pregnancy and also in early childhood growth.
These will provide nurses with an opportunity to take part in redesigning the health care delivery
model (Glied & Altman, 2017). According to Blumenthal & Nuzum (2015), the law has raised
awareness about the roles of nurses in health care provision. Therefore, this gives nurses a
platform to showcase what they do and their impact on quality care. Also, the effect on the role
of the nurses is their advanced training and an increase in payments.
How Pay-for-Performance Affect Patient Outcome
Pay for performance is a program that gives financial rewards to health care workers to
motivate them to work harder for good patient outcomes. The Affordable Care Act expands the
use of pay for performance in the hospital to drive health workers to achieve better outcomes for
the patients. The increased payments are significant in motivating health workers and result in
positive attitudes toward work, enhancing maximum human productivity. Since pay-for-
performance emphasis more on patient outcomes, attention to how the nurse is affected by must