Journal 3
Rachel Brown
Francis Marion University
Health Policy and Leadership
APRN 504
Dr. Hopla

Journal 3
It seems that no matter where you are health care reform is a hot topic. In order to meet the needs of the people health care systems must continuously adapt and self-adjust to remain viable. The basic elements of a health care system include: patients, providers, and payers. Patients need insurance to have routine examinations, prevention screening, and guidance with critical or chronic illness. Health care providers can be as diverse as the patients and includes institutions, clinicians, and suppliers. Health care payers vary and include insurance companies, federal and state programs for uninsured, and individuals who pay out of pocket. The United States (U.S.) spends the most in health care compared to Australia. Universal health care and private insurance is offered to the citizens of Australia. The U.S. health care system has three challenges: lowering cost, improving access, and improving quality. It is believed that one reason the U.S. has not been able to enact health care reform is due to a combination of interest and power. It is hard to bring about change when you have insurance companies showing special interest to politicians to cause them to move in different directions instead of a unified direction (Unruh & Spetz, 2012, p. 161). The future of nursing depends on the reform of the U.S. health care system. Over the past forty years the continued rising cost of health care and insurance premiums strains the government budgets and becomes costly to business that offer health care. Due to inflation the burden of paying higher premiums falls on the lower income population. There are multiple reasons for the why health care cost are rising and they include: rising cost of pharmaceuticals, administrative costs, lack of consumer knowledge, and cost of technological advances(Pulcini & Hart, 2012, p. 137). The government has a way to deal with future cost of health care through cost containment. Medicare now limits how much a physician can charge, and there is a deduction of payment for re-admission to hospital within thirty days after discharge. Many hospitals have performance improvement that reviews charts to insure that the patient receives education about disease process and receives proper treatments to keep patient from being readmitted to the hospital. Many years ago a patient could get admitted to the hospital for a hang nail, now a patient has to meet diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) for admission to the hospital for insurance to pay for care provided. Change is needed in health care to help reduce cost and to meet the demands of those seeking health care.
Society demands that professionals are to be held to a separate moral standard of conduct. Professional ethics are built around three essential components: its purpose, the conduct expected of the professional, and the skill and outcomes expected in professional practice. Many times we may not understand a patients wants in health care, but it is the Advanced Nurse Practitioner (APRN) that has the responsibility to ensure the patients wants and desires are maintained. Lying undermines the relationship between the patient and health care