Part 1: The impact of the IOM reports on nursing education
There are different things that the IOM report addressed. Some of them include the challenges that the nurses face. There are different challenges that nurses face in their line of work. Some of the challenges are legal challenges, which make the nurses unable to practice fully what they learn. The report suggests that this should change to allow the nurse to exploit fully their potential and that which they learned in schools. There is also another issue on how most nurses don’t take up leadership roles in their places of work (Stevens, 2013).
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"The Impact on Nursing of the 2010 IOM Report On the Future of Nursing".
One way that the nursing education can change is by including short courses on leadership and management. Sometimes they don’t have to be short courses. They can be included in the already existing syllabus. The courses or units will instill nursing skills with leadership and management classes, where students can acquire skills they need to hold leadership and managerial positions. The skills can then use the skills acquired in school later when they have different managerial positions.
Another way that the nursing education; is that they will not be limited to what they will be learning. There are things that other medical practitioners learn that nurses don’t learn since they don’t practice the same. However, when they are unlimited with their practice, they can learn more things at their school. Their syllabus is bound to offer more units and classes.
Part 2
One impact of the change of the law is that there will be more personnel helping patients (Barnes et al., 2016). It means that most people will get primary care. Some people currently have no access to primary care. A number of them live in remote areas, and there are few or no medical practitioners. When nurses are allowed by the law to partake in different practices, it means there will be more people who can offer the different services. Some of the nurses among other medical practitioners can be posted in such area, making primary care available for all.
With increased practitioners offering primary care, it also means that the cost of the primary care will significantly go down. It is as a result of the demand and supply theory. When there is high demand for a commodity or service, and the supply is quite low, the price of the commodity or service goes up. When there is a low demand, and high supply, the price goes down. In this case, when there are more primary care givers, people will access quality health. The society will have a reduced number of patients requiring primary health thus a reduced price in the overall primary care costs (Finkelman & Kenner, 2009).
One way that I can help IOM reach its goals as stated in the report is by volunteering to work at some hospital. One of the best hospitals to volunteer at is one in the rural areas. In the rural areas, sometimes people are not able to access primary care due to inadequate infrastructure. Other times, it’s due to insufficient funds. When volunteering, you can reach many people and offer them the primary care cost.
Part 3: The impact of the IOM reports on the nurse’s role as a leader
The IOM report acknowledges the increased demands in the changing healthcare system. The report makes a realization on the need for nurses to take up leadership roles the different settings. The report shows the great need to advance the nursing profession. In the past, nurses did not take up leadership roles. While working together with their colleagues in other medical departments, their colleagues take up the different leadership roles (Melnyk et al., 2012).
With the report encouraging nurses to take up leadership roles, it means that the nurses will be at more liberty to make certain decisions without necessarily having to make consultations (Melnyk et al., 2012). Sometimes nurses know what they should do, but with the current system, they aren’t allowed just to do it. They have to wait for the decision to be made by a different person before they get a go-ahead to do certain things or to take certain actions.
Other than an advantage of the nurses making certain decisions, there is also another advantage. With the ability to make decisions, it means that there will be shorter time offering patient care. Long decision-making processes take up too much time that would have otherwise been used in providing care to the patients. The nurse will have to make quick decisions which can sometimes save a patient’s life.
An example is a patient who has been on certain medication, and the nurse feels that a different medication would provide better relief to the patient. The nurse will just change the medication, and it will not be long before the patient feels better. Previously, the nurse would have continued to administer the medication that doesn’t offer much relief. By the time the nurse is suggesting a different medication and go-ahead is issued, the patient will have suffered so much pain.
- Barnes, H., Maier, C. B., Sarik, D. A., Germack, H. D., Aiken, L. H., & McHugh, M. D. (2016). Effects of Regulation and Payment Policies on Nurse Practitioners’ Clinical Practices. Medical Care Research and Review, 1077558716649109.
- Finkelman, A. W., & Kenner, C. (2009). Teaching IOM: Implications of the Institute of Medicine reports for nursing education. Nursesbooks. org.
- Melnyk, B. M., Fineout-Overholt, E., Gallagher-Ford, L., & Kaplan, L. (2012). The state of evidence-based practice in US nurses: Critical implications for nurse leaders and educators. Journal of Nursing Administration, 42(9), 410-417.
- Stevens, K. (2013). The impact of evidence-based practice in nursing and the next big ideas. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 18(2).