Healthcare Reform Discussion Assignment Help

Identify a state or national politician (state representative or legislator, senator, congressman, governor, etc.), or aide, whom you would like to interview regarding current issues in health care reform. (I live in the state of Maryland. The 2 states senators are Chris Van Hollen since 2017 and Ben Cardin since 2007; the Governor name is Larry Hogan. You can also google any of the information about the state of Maryland in the US)

• As soon as possible, contact the individual's office to request a meeting. Keep in mind that it may be difficult to get on their calendar, so plan accordingly. You may conduct the interview in person or by phone.

• In advance of the interview, ask yourself:

o What health care policy issue is important to me personally?
o What issue do I want to bring to this person's attention?

• With this in mind, develop your list of questions for the interview around your selected health policy issue. In addition, you may wish to include questions related to health care reform:

o What are your constituents most concerned about regarding health care reform?
o What are the trade-offs associated with recent health care reform policy?

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Introduction

It is imperative for healthcare reforms to gain support politically and commitment from politicians to develop professional nursing practices. To assess the issues prevailing in the healthcare sector of Maryland State, I recently arranged a meeting with Chris Von Hollen who is the state senator since 2017 to discuss infection prevalence in hospital settings and initiatives considered by the government to prevent infections. A list of questions are being raised to senator such as why the state hospitals have such a high rate of infections in the premises, what are general repercussions of infection over patients and other people, how the infection increases risks of morbidity, mortality and readmission rate of patients, and what steps are being taken by the government to reduce infections.

Main body

Questioning and reporting the state of infections in Maryland

While discussion, I have cited the examples of various reports to draw the attention of infections prevalence in the hospitals. According to Cohn, (2017), Maryland hospitals are near the bottom in the country to prevent and avoid medical errors, injuries, infections, and accidents. The report further mentions that a reserved response is obtained from the hospitals' administrators that they are trying to improve the situation and safety is a top priority. According to David Simon, who is a spokesperson for the Maryland hospital association, healthcare people wanted to improve quality? The report further reveals that one of the state hospitals has earned A statues while seven hospitals have received B ranking. As the infections and errors in medical treatment are the third leading cause of death in the USA, the situation for the Maryland residents is grave if the healthcare administration does not pay heed to this problem effectively.

Another report mentions that about 80 % of the acute care hospitals of Maryland has at least one person being infected by drug-resistant bacteria or carrying that bacteria (Dance, 2012). I have asked the negligence factors of hospitals that spread bacterial infections. The report further outlines the full extent of people suffering from bacteria or carrying bacteria in the state is not known because the hospitals are not required to report such cases to authorities of the state. But it is also found that due to such ignorance; about 5 to 10 percent of the patients are found positive to be suffered by drug-resistant bacteria. I have asked the senators why such dismal performance by state hospitals takes place and why regulatory authorities and state government system has failed to devise a strong policy in this regard. I have drawn senator attention towards poor performance by of John Hopkins that has a network of hospitals. Each hospital has faced a serious allegation of a safety issue in the hospitals. Federal inspectors identified that dying of surgical patient due to wrong blood transfusion, and doctor injuring children in burn units. Human errors in treating patients are found in other hospitals of Johns Hopkins. In one incident, the doctor did not notice fracture in the spine of a patient, and radiologists missed life-threatening embolisms, (Bedi & McGrory, 2018). I have asked the senator, why such utter negligence is displayed by the hospital and what steps are taken by you as a senator to ensure the safety of patients.

Senator's response

After listening to my personal issues and public issues, the senator replied that there are lots of efforts are being taken to mitigate the healthcare-associated infections. In this regard, he mentions the reporting by the acute care hospitals to minimize infections. Acute care hospitals in Maryland state are required to provide central line-associated bloodstream infections or CLASBI in the pediatric and adult intensive care units and neonatal intensive care units as well as in medical and surgical wards. The hospitals are required to report about the catheter-associated urinary tract infections or CAUTI in pediatric and adult care units and in surgical, medical wards. The hospitals are required to provide reports of surgical site infections for various kinds of surgeries. They are regulated to report about the laboratory identified clostridium infections or CDI for emergency departments as well as for 24-hour observation locations. Hospitals are instructed to report about healthcare personnel influenza vaccination as well to prevent infections (MHHC, Maryland.gov, 2019).

He also stresses that to prevent infections in the hospital's settings, apart from human errors, a basic thing that is maintaining hand hygiene needs to be practiced equally by doctors, nurses, and patients. He speaks in a detailed way to the initiatives of hand hygiene maintenance in the hospital's settings. He suggests that hand hygiene practices are still evolving and this is confirmed by other researches as well (Chatfield, DeBois, Nolan, Crawford, & Hallam, 2017). Therefore, he mentions a need for introducing more gifted educational interventions. In this regard, he states that the transfer of pathogens due to poor hand hygiene practice is a common thing and stresses that a policy of hand hygiene should be practiced in such a fashion that is not suboptimal. This statement of his is also found true by other research (Allegranzi, & Pittet, 2009). There are various issues that he explains to implement infection due to poor hand hygiene practices. He cites that poor infrastructure in the hospitals, religious beliefs, working in the intensive care units, surgery department, overcrowding at medical centers, wearing gowns and gloves also increase infections and therefore, appropriate strategies must be suggested by healthcare policy to all people. He states that to promote hand hygiene, policy should consider to enhance a feelings of self protection amongst healthcare workers and patients, addressing personal beliefs that hinder hand hygiene practices, a behavioral research, asking senior staffs of hospitals to promote hand hygiene practices etc (Erasmus, Brouwer, Van Beeck, Oenema, Daha, Richardus, & Brug, 2009).
He also stressed that wearing gowns, gloves, patient care equipments use, mask and eye protection shield and face shields, precautions for airborne and contact infections, droplet precautions, strategies to reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia, CRBSI, UTI, and organizational measures such as education and training, infection control team creation, waste disposal policy, controlling traffic policy, antibiotic stewardship etc should be included in the healthcare reform policy to address the issues of infections in Maryland hospitals

Conclusion

The meeting with the senator is worthy to obtain valuable information about how I can address my personal issue of mitigating infections. He specifically provides guidelines and strategies to address mitigations in hospitals. Certainly, it can help me to introduce an effective policy for infection mitigation.

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