Nurse Role Exploration Project: The Affordable Care Act and New Nursing Roles

As the nation grappled with the potential changes associated with the Affordable Care Act, (ACA), it was evident in early conversations that the focus was on reimbursement for care. This was related to the belief that insurance coverage was synonymous with accessing care. However, the fact was that we needed to scale up capacity of the healthcare system in order to adequately meet the growing demands of newly insured individuals and families. Additionally, incentives in the ACA were changing in such a way to strengthen primary and preventative care, while trying to manage more carefully the costly care provided in hospitals and other institutions. The framework was changing from providing care to managing health. The following figure (Figure 1) shows the essential elements of change from the country's traditional approach to healthcare to that envisioned under the ACA.