Oct 21, 2014 | News Roundup
The following is the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI) weekly news roundup, highlighting nursing and health care stories from around the state.
Merger of Two Hospitals Could Increase Quality, but Also Concentrate Power (NJ Spotlight)
If the end of traditional hospitals concentrating services within their walls wasn’t apparent, the proposed merger of Hackensack University Health Network and Meridian Health made it clear. Not only would the new Hackensack Meridian Health include as many as 11 acute-care hospitals, but also it would include doctors’ offices, rehabilitation centers, skilled nursing, and assisted-living facilities.
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Oct 17, 2014 | News Roundup
“I believe the leaders in hospitals recognize the value of nurses. They know nurses are essential to everyday patient care,” writes David L. Knowlton, president and CEO of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, and a co-lead of the New Jersey Action Coalition, on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Human Capital Blog.
“The nursing role has changed as nurses today run private practices, obtain advanced degrees and prescribing privileges, and run many hospitals as CEOs. The role of nurses has changed faster than the perception of nurses held by too many people on hospital boards. That needs to change, not for the sake of nurses but for the sake of hospitals and all of us as patients.”
Read more of Knowlton’s post, one in a series for the fourth anniversary of the Institute of Medicine’s future of nursing report.
Oct 7, 2014 | News Roundup
The following is the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI) weekly news roundup, highlighting nursing and health care stories from around the state.
Opinion: New Jersey hospitals prepared for public health threats (NJToday.net)
NJNI Program Co-Director Aline Holmes writes: “It’s hard to miss the news reports about Ebola and enterovirus (EV-D68). People are understandably nervous and anxious but New Jersey residents can rest assured that our hospitals are well prepared to deal with these types of public health threats.”
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Sep 30, 2014 | News Roundup
The following is the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI) weekly news roundup, highlighting nursing and health care stories from around the state.
QualCare launching enhanced health management plan for its employers (NJ Biz)
QualCare, which administers health plans for employers across the state, is offering the members of those plans an enhanced “population health management” program designed to get people more engaged in their health. QualCare will reach out to the members through a new “health service team model,” with 70 nurses organized into small teams, or pods, with each pod assigned to a handful of employer groups.
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Sep 23, 2014 | News Roundup
The following is the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI) weekly news roundup, highlighting nursing and health care stories from around the state.
The Affordable Care Act turns 1: How N.J.’s medical landscape is changing (Inside Jersey)
New Jersey medical practices are gaining new patients and serving new populations with the expansion of insurance under the Affordable Care Act, but many physicians are holding off on making wholesale changes to their practices because of concerns that the program will be dismantled before it is fully implemented. According to a May report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the percent of uninsured among the state’s non-elderly population dropped from 21.2 percent in September 2013 to 13.2 percent in early March 2014, a decrease of 38 percent. That translates into more than 400,000 newly insured people, and indicates the state is at the lowest level of uninsured in 25 years.
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