My point is just that the medicare laws severely affect nursing.

Sure the nurses easily got jobs elsewhere within the medical field, but the infrastructure for home health was greatly damaged. With the decreased caseload total decreased, home health agencies lost not only registered nurses, but LPNs and aides as well.

flynn23 wrote:
] skullaria wrote:
] ] Well they better get back the infrastructure of support
] ] theylost when medicare quite paying for homecare based
] ] bloodwork and glucose testing. This one change in medicare
] ] laws a few years back cost a lot of home health registered
] ] nurses their jobs.
]
] Most of those jobs were probably absorbed elsewhere in more
] lucrative positions. Subjective, I know, but probably true.
] There is a severe nursing shortage in this country, and most
] of the workforce is moving towards non-hospital non-direct
] care jobs, such as disease management and similar approaches.
]
] The whole point of there being more investment and development
] around devices and remote patient monitoring is the sheer
] volume we're approaching. With a nursing shortage, and 70M
] baby-boomers about to enter end-of-life, there's absolutely no
] possible way to provide even shoddy care at these levels.
] Technology has to step in and help. And will.
]
] A lot of the Medicare Reform Act tries to address this, and
] the one thing that the Bush administration has done well is
] put it's money where it's mouth is in building grants and
] offering up to $50M per year for the next two years to
] stimulate Healthcare IT. Of course a lot of that probably
] comes from the fact that Sen. Frist is one of Dubya's most
] trusted and respected confidants. But I tend to agree that
] this is a real problem that needs real action to address.
] Where does it weigh in with our other abysmal problems
] (education? foreign policy? corporate welfare? etc...)? who
] knows...

RE: Devices spur move to home-based care