News Roundup – June 3, 2014
The following is the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI) weekly news roundup, highlighting nursing and health care stories from around the state.
Health Care’s Challenge: Cut Costs but Still Meet Demands of Aging Populace (NJ Spotlight)
The focus in health care has shifted to finding ways to reduce costs while providing the best possible medical services. But other shifts–in demographics, and in the way those medical services are provided–may require doing something that usually drives up costs: hiring more people to meet the increasing health care needs of a more-insured, older population. Panelists at a recent conference suggested that finding efficiencies–such as having qualified but lower-salaried nurses performing tasks sometimes done by doctors–could be part of the answer.