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Nursing Cliinics For Homeless Patients Essay

¶ … Care Nurse managed care has many potential benefits in a largely taxed healthcare system such as found in the United States. One specific area of improvement could come from the reliance on the crowded emergency department. Many homeless and low-income individuals often rely on the emergency department (ED) as their primary health care source because they are not able to access alternative healthcare sources. One proposed solution to such overcrowding in the ED, is to promote nurse managed lower cost clinics that can assist a majority of this populations non-emergency needs as well as help them to access additional community resources that they may need to treat their specific conditions (Savage, Lindsell, Gillespie, Lee, & Corbin, 2008).

There are many different perspectives that have been applied to such a proposal. One is that it can help train and provide experience for young nurses. Another is that it could help to alleviate much of the crowding in some ED departments and reserve this option for those who really have emergencies. Another benefit could be that the quality of care provided to those most marginalized could be substantially improved. For example, if a homeless person goes to the ED with a non-emergency...

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However, a nurse-based clinic could essentially spend more time with patient to diagnose deeper health issues (such as drug use) as well as refer them to additional community resources such as social services so that they could receive care that could substantially improve their situation. Nurse practitioners could also play a role in coordinating services as well as provide follow-up care to homeless patients. Thus for a wide range of different factors, the health outcomes of this population could be substantially improved upon with the nurse practitioner model. There are some potentially negative as well however. For example, if a patient had a severe condition that went undiagnosed, then the ER department might be better suited to screen such a patient. If they went to the clinic instead of the ER, then a condition could be missed. However, for most basic health concerns, the homeless population's health can be significantly improved upon with a nurse practitioner.
One study found that nurse-managed clinics can have a positive impact on reported vitality, mental health status and substance use of homeless people in the Midwest and also reported that there…

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Savage, C., Lindsell, C., Gillespie, G., Lee, R., & Corbin, A. (2008). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Improving health status of homeless patients at a nurse-managed clinic in the Midwest USA. Health and Social Care in the Community, 469-475.
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