Leading Change: Nursing and Physician Roles Essay

Leading Change: Nursing and Physician Roles Essay

Leading Change: Nursing and Physician Roles Essay

Due to the differences in the social determinants of health, healthcare disparities and inequalities exist. These social determinants of health lead to differences in health and wellness and the accessibility of healthcare services for people from different backgrounds. Nurses can work with other care providers to ensure equitable care and promote accessibility of care services across different health populations in a community. This discussion explores how nurses can collaborate with physicians and other healthcare professionals to improve primary care, reduce overutilization and improve underutilization of healthcare services. A discussion of how fostering an environment of diversity and cultural awareness among healthcare providers builds a stronger healthcare team and improves care delivery to healthcare consumers will be provided.

Primary healthcare mainly entails providing care to patients with general injuries and illnesses rather than specific illnesses. According to Torrens et al. (2020), nurses in primary care settings are responsible for providing general care to patients while promoting proper care quality, increasing patient satisfaction, and improving overall care. However, this can only be a success while working collaboratively with doctors and other healthcare professionals. Nurses can work with other care professionals to reduce health disparities in primary care by ensuring all patients access the necessary care services and are served without discrimination.

In addition, nurses can work with other healthcare professionals as a team while delegating roles and ensuring that all patient needs are met. As patient advocates, nurses present the patient’s needs to the interprofessional team, thus promoting patient outcomes and improving care. According to Ellen et al. (2021), overutilization of care services is a situation whereby patients receive more services than they need, and these services may potentially cause harm. Nurses can also reduce the overutilization of healthcare services by ensuring that patients get only the necessary services. For example, nurses can ensure that patients do not take unnecessary tests, which leads to overutilization of healthcare services and resources, by working with the physicians to rule out misdiagnosis and differentials.

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Furthermore, nurses can collaborate with other healthcare professionals to improve the underutilization of healthcare services through awareness creation and health promotion. For instance, nurses can create awareness of health insurance coverage and its benefits, thus improving care services underutilization by increasing the number of patients accessing underutilized care services. Additionally, health promotion initiatives by nurses can be used to assist patients in utilizing stigmatized care services such as mental health services.

A strong healthcare team improves care delivery to all consumers since the team can achieve better outcomes and cater to all patient care needs. A strong team is built by fostering an environment of diversity and cultural awareness among healthcare providers. An environment of diversity and cultural awareness enables the team members to respect each other since the team members from diverse cultures learn to accept each other’s cultures and not be biased based on their cultures. Kumra et al. (2020) note that cultural awareness among teams enables better team performance. Similarly, healthcare teams can improve care efficiency and deliver quality care to all healthcare consumers.

Nurses are at the frontline in reducing healthcare disparities by collaborating with other care providers to reduce the overutilization of care services and improve the underutilization of care services. Collaboration is complemented by cultural diversity and awareness, strengthening the care team. Strong interprofessional care teams are more likely to produce desirable outcomes.   

References

Ellen, M. E., Perlman, S., & Shach, R. (2021). Too Much Cancer Care?: Nurses’ Perspectives on the Unnecessary Use of Oncology Services. Cancer Nursing, 44(4), E236-E243. https://doi.org/10.1097/NCC.0000000000000814

Kumra, T., Hsu, Y. J., Cheng, T. L., Marsteller, J. A., McGuire, M., & Cooper, L. A. (2020). The association between organizational cultural competence and teamwork climate in a network of primary care practices. Health Care Management Review, 45(2), 106-116. https://doi.org/10.1097%2FHMR.0000000000000205

Torrens, C., Campbell, P., Hoskins, G., Strachan, H., Wells, M., Cunningham, M., Bottone, H., Polson, R., & Maxwell, M. (2020). Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the advanced nurse practitioner role in primary care settings: A scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 104, 103443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103443

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Discussion Question:

Reflecting on what you have learned about the social determinants of health, SDOH, how can nurses work collaboratively with physicians and other health care professionals to improve primary care, reduce overutilization and improve underutilization of healthcare services? Include in your response how fostering an environment of diversity and cultural awareness among healthcare providers builds a stronger healthcare team and improves care delivery to healthcare consumers.