Good Nurse-Managed Clinics Essay Example

The paper shall explore the article titled Bridge Care Nurse-managed Clinics Fill the gap in Health Care by Rebecca Sutter-Barrett, Caroline Sutter-Dalrymple and Kathleen Dickman.
The article discusses the role that Nurse-Managed Health Clinics (NMHCs) play a critical role in expanding access to healthcare for uninsured and low-income populations. The article gives several roles or functions that the clinics and the nurses play. Firstly, the clinics provide care to disadvantaged populations. Secondly, the NMHCs provide opportunities for the education of nurse practitioners. Thirdly, the NMHCs increase the primary care workforce. The article discusses an innovative concept called the Bridge Care model in which the NMHCs bridge the gap between patient entry into the healthcare systems and permanent medical homes.
According to Sutter-Barrett, Sutter-Dalrymple and Dickman, the NNHCs bridge the gap by uniting the disciplines of psychology, nursing, medicine, social work and nutrition in order to come up with inter-professional education and healthcare built on community partnerships (262). In other words, the national and the local health policies meet the “real life” of disadvantaged people in the society.
The strengths of the NHMCs through the Bridge Care clinics are that they aid in the execution of policies and laws that promote healthcare for all people. The clinics promote the execution of the Affordable Care Act, which improves access to primary care (Sutter-Barrett, Sutter-Dalrymple and Dickman, 263). The clinics also offer nurses opportunities to practice and as such, the clinics cannot fall short of having adequate work force. The student-nurse involvement brings about vigor and energy into the system thereby promoting speedy responses to healthcare issues.
The clinics prepare nurses and future nurse practitioners to be leaders in the healthcare system. The clinics have also formed solid and supportive structure since they have been in existence for about a century. They have grown very fast in the last 20 years and the rapid growth assures the clinics of survival and ability to cope with increased demand for healthcare in the future (Sutter-Barrett, Sutter-Dalrymple and Dickman, 264).
The Bridge Care model also leverages community resources while also developing new partnerships and coalitions. The system has also gained popularity and public support and goodwill since it ensures that disadvantaged populations can access urgent care needs from their point of entry into health care systems until they are placed in existing community healthcare systems.
The weaknesses of the Bridge Care clinics system could emanate from lack of many experienced nurses and healthcare providers. In most cases, the NHMCs attract young nurse practitioners and this can be a shortcoming in the provision of high quality healthcare and the handling of complicated cases of care.
There is ample data available to help evaluate the effectiveness of the NHMCs. The Bridge Care clinics offer healthcare to about 250 patients monthly (Sutter-Barrett, Sutter-Dalrymple and Dickman, 264). There are many disadvantaged people in the US who can be beneficiaries of the NHMCs. According to Cornelia Ronan, on any night there are about 760,000 people in the US (106). Women and children form the bulk of the people who need the NHMCs. A third of the homeless people have mental illnesses and as such, the multidisciplinary approach that the NHMCs use can prove to be beneficial in handling the healthcare challenges of the homeless population (Cornelia Ronan, 106). Many people also start to abuse drugs when hey stay on the streets for more than 1 year and as such, the social work component of the NHMCs can help alleviate the problems associated with drug abuse among the homeless and the disadvantaged.
The article provides some ideas of a potential clinic that I might want to start. This is so because there are increasing challenges to healthcare and its affordability by the disadvantaged people. When all people in a given nation have access to healthcare or linkages to community and state-sponsored healthcare, there is sustainable development of the society.

Works cited

Sutter-Barrett Rebecca, Sutter-Dalrymple Caroline and Dickson Kathleen. Bridge Care Nurse-managed Clinics Fill the gap in Health Care. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners
Volume 11, Issue 2, February 2015, Pages 262–265
Cornelia Ronan, Wilson, Nurse-Managed Free Clinic Fosters Care Connection for Homeless Population. Rehabilitation Nursing34.3(May/Jun 2009): 105-9.
Capan, Patrice, Margaret Beard, and Mindy Mashburn. "Nurse-managed Clinics Provide Access and Improved Health Care." The Nurse Practitioner: 50-55. Print.