Health Care and Nursing Term Paper

Health Care System Today

government has the highest expenditures on health care than any other country in the world yet Americans are yet to obtain better results. Given increased health care costs that account for 17% of the country's GDP with minimal results, health care reform has attracted considerable attention throughout the years. One of the recent initiatives adopted towards health care reform is the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010 by President Obama. As the provisions of this act continue to be enforced until 2020, significant gains have been realized with regards to reforming health care. Some of these gains include reduction of the uninsured population, Medicaid expansion, and increased affordability and accessibility of care services.

In light of the reforms brought by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the role of nurse practitioner has relatively changed. The changes in the role of nurse practitioners are brought by the significant gains attributable to this legislation. Moreover, the changes have been brought by enhanced affordability and accessibility of health care services to the American population. As a nurse practitioner, there are changes to my role in relation to enhancing health and health care in the United States.

To improve health and health care throughout the country, my role as a nurse practitioner is enhancing efficient care delivery and improving the practice environment. Given the accessibility and affordability of health care services, there are improved workloads because of the increase in the number of individuals seeking for care (Anderson, 2014). In order to effectively handle these workloads and ensure patient satisfaction, nursing entails improving efficient care delivery and enhancing the practice environment. Actually, without enhanced care delivery and practice environment, it's relatively difficult to accomplish the goals of the Affordable Care Act with regards to patient safety and satisfaction.

The improvement of care delivery as a nurse practitioner involves innovation and task allocation. Innovation and task allocation helps in provision of high-quality patient care, which is an indicator of efficiency and productivity. Moreover, this process will also involve working in a multidisciplinary team to meet the ever-increasing health care needs of the population. Working in a multidisciplinary team has become an important aspect in the contemporary health care system because of the diverse nature and complications of care issues facing the American population. During this process, nurse practitioners should focus on care coordination,…