Ethical and Policy factors
Introduction
The elderly in nursing homes are among those who require the highest level of care coordination. However, various ethical and policy issues have been reported to be the primary factor affecting effective care coordination in nursing homes (Townsend et al. 2017). Even though most of the nursing care staff have reported low care coordination, minimal research has been undertaken to determine the extent at which ethical and policy issues affect care coordination in nursing homes (Luther & Hart, 2014). The quality of care in the United States nursing homes has been a recurrent issue in the public domain. It has been an issue for the past thirty years (Townsend et al. 2017). Various regulations such as the federal certification are in place, but still, the problems of poor quality exist. The patients in nursing homes again experience a high level of patient abuse (Luther & Hart, 2014). Therefore, it is clear that ethical and policy factors are among the primary reasons why care coordination in nursing homes in the United States is still a big problem.
Governmental policies related to the health and safety
The quality of patient care for the elderly in nursing homes should not have to be a point of debate, but they require the utmost level of medical care. With the adoption and existence of the federal government controlling activities in the nursing homes and implementing the social security act policy, the level of care coordination provided has drastically reduced (Bower, 2016). The social security act and the old age assistance facilitated the existence of more nursing homes with minimal support from the government. Currently, the Medicare policy has helped in improve the quality of care (American Nurses Association, 2015). The new regulations and policies have meaningfully squeezed on the quality of care in the elderly. Research indicates that nurses who work in nursing homes are poorly paid, offering minimal motivation for attending to elderly persons (American Nurses Association, 2015). Most of the nursing homes are privately owned, stimulating no growth of public nurses who need to work in nursing homes. Nevertheless, currently, the government has adopted the Medicare policy intending to improve the quality of care (Bower, 2016). The Medicare policy provides financial support to nursing homes.
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Effect of governmental policies on the coordination of care in nursing homes
The government policies significantly impact the level of care in the nursing homes. The newest Medicare policies consider the practitioners as they are the people who take care of elderly persons (Luther & Hart, 2014). Through this policy, the practitioners’ compensation adopts the bundle payment method that allows the health care practitioners to coordinate care across the nursing homes (Magelssen et al. 2018). Payment of health care practitioners in nursing homes is the main factor that has been considered to reduce or increase the quality of health in nursing homes (Luther & Hart, 2014). The Medicare policy program, which is the current government policy that is in use in the nursing homes, have allowed the adoption of bundled payment method thus motivating the caregivers (Magelssen et al. 2018). Since the adoption and implementation of this policy, the quality of care coordination in nursing homes have greatly improved.
National, state, and local policy provisions that raise ethical questions for care coordination
Ethically, the nurses are expected to execute their job professionally. The affordable care policy is a policy used at the national, state, and local level. Therefore, it is applicable in all health care sectors, including nursing homes (Luther & Hart, 2014). However, several studies have indicated that this policy raises various ethical questions relating to care coordination. Affordable health care increases the amount of persons in older people care homes, reducing the quality of services as this policy does not increase the number of nurses (Luther & Hart, 2014). Increasing the number of older people seeking medical attention in nursing homes and not increasing the number of nurses causes more harm than good (Bower, 2016). The affordable healthcare policy leads to poor diagnosis and long treatment period of significant diseases that if taken,
