NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Name
Capella university
NURS-FPX 4050 Coord Patient-Centered Care
Prof. Name
Date
Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Welcome all. my name is ——, and I am a nurse manager and care coordinator in the community care setting. This presentation is tailored specially for the American Cancer Society to raise awareness and knowledge about ethical and policy aspects that impact care coordination for patients with cardiovascular disorders. As cancer patients require continuous and holistic care from a multidisciplinary team, addressing their ethical and policy considerations is crucial to providing high-quality care without compromising their moral rights and requirements (Ezell et al., 2021). I would highly appreciate your interest in this topic and hope this session will significantly impact ethical future care plans for patients with heart diseases. Before any delays, let me go through the agenda for today.
Agenda
The following are the significant contents to be discussed in the presentation:
- A brief introduction to care coordination
- Discussion on governmental policies impacting the coordination of care
- Detailed policies at national, state, and local levels, along with ethical consequences
- Analysis of nursing code of ethics and their impact on care coordination and its continuum
Let’s discuss them one by one!
Introduction to Care Coordination
Care coordination is essential in healthcare to deliver the right care treatments with adequate collaboration and community with all interprofessional team members. It is crucial in achieving desired health outcomes among patients, particularly those with chronic diseases, and managing cancer treatments and post-chemotherapy care. It is also essential in the care transition process to ensure a smooth and safe transition of patients from the hospital to their residence places. Community healthcare organizations practicing care coordination experience better health outcomes among patients and reduce health complications (Wei et al., 2022).
Governmental Policies Impacting the Care Coordination Process
I will discuss two prominent governmental regulations that impact the care coordination process. These are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH).
HIPAA and Care Coordination
The HIPAA regulation enforces healthcare professionals in securing patients’ protected health information. The HIPAA policy of patient privacy rule allows certain entities, including healthcare professionals, to protect and safeguard patient’s medical and health records. It restricts the use and disclosure of this information by giving patients control over their health data. Additionally, it supports this information exchange to facilitate coordinated care among multidisciplinary team care approaches (Ezell et al., 2021). HIPAA also requires healthcare professionals to alarm organizations in case of a violation of unsecured PHI to promote continuous improvement in securing patients’ sensitive information in the care coordination process. With the implementation of these regulations by HIPAA, healthcare organizations can strive to encourage coordinated care without compromising patient’s right to privacy and security (Deixler et al., 2021). Implementing these policy provisions in ACS will facilitate care coordination by safeguarding PHI and enhancing informed decision-making for patients combatting cancer.
HITECH Act and Care Coordination
Another governmental policy, HITECH, facilitates incorporating Health Information Technology (HIT) to enhance the delivery of medical care services, efficiency, and safety. The HITECH Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive program is one example of this policy incentivizing specific healthcare settings to integrate and encourage the effective utilization of EHR (Lite et al., 2020). This widespread adoption of EHRs encouraged by HITECH promotes seamless exchange of patient health data among healthcare providers. This facilitates improved care coordination by ensuring that relevant health data is accessible to authorized individuals across different healthcare settings (Gill et al., 2020). The use of EHR by healthcare professionals ACS can ease the coordination of care in managing cancer patient care, such as chemotherapy and post-chemotherapy management.
Health Policies at National, State, and Local Levels, Along with Ethical consequences
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Policy Provision
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aims to improve access to healthcare among all states and enhance the quality of care while reducing healthcare costs. This Act comprises various policy provisions such as Medicaid expansion, health insurance marketplace, etc. The Medicaid Expansion addresses the issues of poverty that hinder access to basic healthcare facilities. This state and federally-funded program allows states to extend Medicaid eligibility to a more significant portion of the population, including public individuals with wages matching 138% of the poverty level federally (Breslau et al., 2020). This policy provision of ACA aligns with the principles of justice and equity by providing health coverage to low-income individuals who otherwise lack access to essential healthcare services. It also aims to reduce disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. This program is also deeply rooted in the principle of beneficence as it seeks to promote the well-being of vulnerable populations by ensuring they have access to preventive care, treatment for chronic diseases, and necessary medical services (Rozier & Singer, 2020).
The State Health Information Exchange (HIE) Consent Laws are the regulations that govern the exchanging of health information within the state. These policies focus on promoting interoperability and secure information exchange among healthcare entities. For instance, the legislative group of Texas permits the HIE organizations to encourage the intentional exchange of secure EHR data. Nevada State also specifies the HIE permission with patient consent before sharing health information (Apathy & Holmgren, 2020). The ethical implications revolve around ensuring that HIE services are accessible to healthcare providers across diverse communities in Texas and Nevada while addressing the issues of equity in health information sharing (Apathy & Holmgren, 2020).
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Los Angeles County has developed localized Community Health Improvement Plans (CHIPs) that address community health needs. These include promoting preventive care programs such as managing chronic diseases and increasing access to care services (Carroll, 2020). Additionally, CHIPs aim to create healthy and safe communities by reducing violence, infectious diseases, and air pollution and improving public health. Lastly, the CHIPS program achieves equity and community stability by increasing literacy rates and providing quality care among all community members (County of Los Angeles Public Health, n.d.). The ethical dilemmas may arise in prioritizing health concerns within the county. The county requiring health improvement plan may need to be addressed, and resources are allocated to less-deserving communities, aggravating the ethical dilemma of social injustice. This requires legislation to ensure CHIPs address the most pressing health needs and promote equity in resource allocation (Breslau et al., 2020). These policies can also direct ACS to follow similar regulations and implement them to boost health outcomes among cancer patients. As a result, cancer patients’ quality of life will improve, enhancing patient satisfaction.
Analysis of Nursing Code of Ethics and Their Impact on Care Coordination and its Continuum
American Nursing Association (ANA) has developed a specific nursing code of ethics for nurses to practice clinically. These nursing ethics include practicing beneficence, justice, non-maleficence, and equity in providing care. Moreover, the nurses are directed to perform the ethical obligations of providing high-quality care with a patient-centered approach. Implementation of these codes of ethics contributes to effective care coordination in several ways. As the code by ANA focuses on patient-centered care and respecting the dignity and autonomy of patients, nurses are actively engaged with patients in care coordination (Usberg et al., 2020). This ensures that care plans align with individual needs and preferences. Moreover, nurses are encouraged to alleviate health disparities with the ethical principle of equity in care. This promotes social justice and fosters a more equitable distribution of resources within the continuum of care (Lundin & Godskesen, 2021).
The social determinants of health by Healthy People 2020, such as health literacy and healthcare settings, can also help analyze the impact of nursing ethical principles. When nurses are encouraged to promote health literacy among community members and reduce educational disparities, they can better make informed decisions and adhere to care plans. Furthermore, healthcare systems become more accessible and effective when nurses advocate for system improvements, technology integration, and patient-centered care models (Horwitz et al., 2020). Hence, the nursing code of ethics and social determinants of health by Healthy People 2020 together impact the care coordination and continuum in providing care treatments to patients. Thus, the nurses working for ACS must implement these ethical principles that promote patient-centered care and social justice for cancer patients.
Conclusion
In this presentation, we discussed the ethical policy factors impacting care coordination for the ACS. For this purpose, governmental policies, including HIPAA and HITECH, were discussed. Our discussion further progressed toward the policies that raise ethical dilemmas and implications. Lastly, we discussed how a nursing ethical code of conduct can affect care coordination and its continuum. I hope this broad discussion will enhance the care coordination of healthcare working under ACS. Thank you for your keen attention and participation.
References
Apathy, N. C., & Holmgren, A. J. (2020). Opt-in consent policies: potential barriers to hospital health information exchange. The American Journal of Managed Care, 26(1), e14–e20. https://doi.org/10.37765/ajmc.2020.42148
Breslau, J., Han, B., Lai, J., & Yu, H. (2020). Impact of the affordable care act medicaid expansion on utilization of mental health care. Medical Care, 58(9), 757–762. https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0000000000001373
Carroll, L. (2020). Community health improvement plans at national and local levels: An analysis of plans and innovative approach in an urban health department – proquest. Www.proquest.com. https://search.proquest.com/openview/741ef444e428fdc8d4b8150bf150ff15/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=44156
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
County of Los Angeles Public Health. (n.d.). LA county department of public health. Publichealth.lacounty.gov. http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/plan/chip.htm
Deixler, H., Kayam, T., & Lawyer, S. (2021). Will you share my data, please? – proquest. Www.proquest.com. https://www.proquest.com/openview/7c06ae33546fdc666359ab898c0e7877/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=38541
Ezell, J. M., Hamdi, S., & Borrero, N. (2021). Approaches to addressing nonmedical services and care coordination needs for older adults. Research on Aging, 016402752110339. https://doi.org/10.1177/01640275211033929
Gill, E., Dykes, P. C., Rudin, R. S., Storm, M., McGrath, K., & Bates, D. W. (2020). Technology-facilitated care coordination in rural areas: What is needed? International Journal of Medical Informatics, 137, 104102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104102
Horwitz, L. I., Chang, C., Arcilla, H. N., & Knickman, J. R. (2020). Quantifying health systems’ investment in social determinants of health, by sector, 2017–19. Health Affairs, 39(2), 192–198. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.01246
Lite, S., Gordon, W. J., & Stern, A. D. (2020). Association of the meaningful use electronic health record incentive program with health information technology venture capital funding. JAMA Network Open, 3(3), e201402. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.1402
Lundin, E., & Godskesen, T. E. (2021). End-of-life care for people with advanced dementia and pain: A qualitative study in Swedish nursing homes. BMC Nursing, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00566-7
Rozier, M. D., & Singer, P. M. (2020). The good and evil of health policy: Medicaid expansion, republican governors, and moral intuitions. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/23294515.2020.1863506
Usberg, G., Uibu, E., Urban, R., & Kangasniemi, M. (2020). Ethical conflicts in nursing: An interview study. Nursing Ethics, 28(2), 096973302094575. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733020945751
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Wei, S., McConnell, E. S., Granger, B., & Corazzini, K. N. (2022). Care coordination processes in transitional care for patients with heart failure. Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 37(6). https://doi.org/10.1097/jcn.0000000000000872