Episode 6: Restructure This! Patient Protection beyond the Bedside
At the bedside, patients count on nurses to safeguard their health, to help them understand their treatment plans and options, and to support them when it becomes necessary to stand up to hospital systems that limit the care they need. Patients now need nurses more […]
Episode 5: Setting RNs up for Failure: How Corporate Hospitals Target Nurses
As patient advocates, nurses play an important role in keeping hospital systems balanced toward the interests and well-being of patients. Hospital corporations, as a consequence, often look to eliminate nurses when their plans for hospital restructuring are likely to put patients at risk.
Episode 4: Care Teams, Population Health, and Patient Experience Surveys: Accountable to Whom?
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are the fastest growing trend in US healthcare. ACOs are a new payment model premised on a business arrangement among hospitals, payers, and other investors. This episode discusses how ACOs threaten to leave the most vulnerable patients without the healthcare they […]
Episode 3: Electronic Health Records Are Competing for Your Job
Guided by incentives provided by the PPACA, most hospitals have increased their use of Electronic Health Records. However, many of the programs on the market are designed to do much more than simply record patient information. They are sold to CEOs as a way to […]
Episode 2: Is this a Hospital or a Hotel?
Hospitals nationwide are treating patients more like customers than people in need of high quality healthcare. This episode looks at the consequences for nurses and their patients of turning healthcare into a customer service industry.
Episode 1: What’s in a Name? Everything
The full name of the law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Shortening the name to ACA or ObamaCare overlooks the initial impetus of the law: to protect patients. Whose interests are protected by shortening the name?This episode lays the groundwork for the […]