Select a community organization or group that you feel would be interested in learning about ethical and policy issues that affect the coordination of care. Then, develop and record a 10-12-slide, 20-minute presentation with audio intended for that audience. Create a detailed narrative script or speaker notes for your presentation, 4-5 pages in length.

Ethical and Policy Issues & Care Coordination

Presentation Narrative Script

Hello and welcome to the kick-off presentation on the ethical and policy issues involved in the coordination of care in a nursing home. In this presentation, I will discuss how governmental policies affect the coordination of care in a nursing home. I will also talk about the national, state, and local policy provisions that raise ethical dilemmas in care coordination. Lastly, I will tackle the impact of the code of ethics for nurses on the coordination and continuum of care.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) came up with regulations on issues of privacy in healthcare. The purpose is to safeguard the security of individuals’ health information and establish the rights of individuals in regard to health information. In nursing homes, HIPAA plays a key role. Protecting patients’ privacy is important to avoid legal repercussions and because it is the ethical thing to do. The most significant HIPAA complications involve disclosing information to third parties. Most older adults in nursing homes have family members who normally make decisions for them, especially if they suffer from cognitive decline. HIPAA regulations specifically outline that only specific individuals may gain access to the healthcare information of a patient, and it might be quite complicated to determine whether certain family members have the legal right to see the healthcare information of their loved one in a nursing home. Turnover can also cause major concerns for HIPAA. Nursing homes tend to have a hard time retaining staff, and with the increasing growth of older adults, nursing shortage is a key problem. HIPAA might have trouble with entry-level employees since they only have a right to particular information. Furthermore, monitored or poorly trained staff might bring problems with HIPAA. Since some nursing homes fail to provide adequate training on HIPAA rules to their staff members, they might unintentionally violate HIPAA rules at some point (Gallon, 2020). This is likely to affect the care offered to clients, and trust might be broken in the process.

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The Affordable Care Act has various important provisions that have a direct effect on nursing homes. Under the ACA, individuals can now have easier access to more information on nursing homes to help in the selection. Such information as the owner of the nursing home, how much is spent on resident care, hours that residents receive, number of violations and complaints, and staff turnover rates are available. Consumers can also easily file a complaint in regard to the quality of care. There is also a new health law such as the Elder Justice Act that is designed to offer federal resources to help prevent, detect, treat, comprehend, and intervene in and, where applicable, prosecute elder abuse, exploitation, and neglect (Morgan, 2015). In a healthcare facility in San Francisco, employees violated the privacy of patients in a dementia ward and would physically and verbally abuse them while sending pictures of various scenarios, such as a patient being in a bathroom to each other. This invited huge fines, criminal charges, and revoking of licenses. This is a major violation of the HIPAA law, and thanks to the ACA, such information is available to the public and can help individuals demand better quality of care for their loved ones. The ACA provides patient-centered care through community health teams that collaborate to establish a more thorough and personal doctor-patient relationship. It also keeps costs minimal while providing care coordination and community support for the elderly.

Medicare is a key governmental policy with major impacts on the coordination of care. Medicare offers health insurance services to older persons in the US. It boosts care coordination as it proposes to enhance access to care for individuals who are covered. However, Khullar and Chokshi (2018) claim that individuals covered under Medicare tend to record higher rates of readmission and re-hospitalization. Furthermore, Miller et al. (2012) claim that the Medicare policy that disallows simultaneous access to Medicare Part A hospice care for nursing home residents receiving Medicare skilled nursing facility care creates a major problem as it is linked with increased deaths and low quality of life. Given that most individuals covered under Medicare are from low-income backgrounds, there is a likelihood of receiving low-quality care due to nursing shortages, burnout, and medical errors.

Medicare is one of the national health policies that raises major ethical questions in nursing homes. Compared to privately insured patients, those receiving Medicare have a higher probabilit