Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-233) and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- Part I. Fuller Hospital. 1. Welcome to the obstetric unit -- 2. A day in the life of an obstetrical nurse -- Part II. Nursing and organizational change. 3. Patient-oriented nurses -- 4. Process-oriented nurses -- Part III. The root of the problem. 5. Health care policy changes and organizational crises -- Conclusion.
Summary:
More and more not-for-profit hospitals are becoming financially unstable and being acquired by large hospital systems. The effects range from not having necessary life-saving equipment to losing the most experienced nurses to better jobs at other hospitals. In Health Care in Crisis, Theresa Morris takes an in-depth look at how this unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act plays out in a non-profit hospital's obstetrical ward. Based on ethnographic observations of and in-depth interviews with obstetrical nurses and hospital administrators at a community, not-for-profit hospital in New England, Health Care in Crisis examines how nurses' care of patients changed over the three-year period in which the Affordable Care Act was implemented, state Medicaid funds to hospitals were slashed, and hospitals were being acquired by a for-profit hospital system. Morris explains how the tumultuous political-economic changes have challenged obstetrical nurses, who are at the front lines of providing care for women during labor and birth.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.