Hospitals and other health care organizations must attempt to meet the needs of the population it serves including the vulnerable population. For them to meet the needs they must first determine the problems or areas of lack. The hospitals within my community make sure needs are being met by conducting surveys after patients are discharged from the hospital by a follow up phone call. This phone call determines if they were satisfied with their care and if their anticipated needs were being met as expected. The hospital organizations have also set up a patient advocacy program. This program is completely available for the patients to make sure they are getting what they need, and this includes those vulnerable populations. One of the major concerns have been access to health care that is needed regardless of insurance. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) that was created in 1986 has been one of the acts implemented to help the vulnerable population. They can receive a medical screening examination (MSE) regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, and their ability to pay or not. The six Institute of Medicine (IOM) were created to improve health care services to a population and the individuals being serviced. Those six aims of the institute of medicine are safety, patient- centeredness, timeliness, effectiveness, equity, and efficiency. Constant and consistent education is necessary for nurses to ensure these six goals are being met with every patient encounter. One of the biggest factors is reducing patient to nurse ratios. This would ensure that these six aims were being met consistently. Patient safety encompasses not only medication and surgical errors, but also fall reduction measures. It was noted in Nursing and Health Sciences that nurses directly correlate work demands with the ability to provide patient care in a safe and timely manner (Ramanujam (2008). Patient centered care focuses on the patient and what his or her needs and goals are and making him or her an active participant in their care. Another factor is the nurses ability to put aside his or her own biases and ensure treatment is effective by going back and evaluate the interventions performed for patient care. How efficient are they being with the care they are providing? These are just some of the areas that need to be considered as there are many others to make sure we are caring properly for the patients and population we serve. References Ramanujam, R., Abrahamson, K. and Anderson, . (2008), Influence of workplace demands on nurses’ perception of patient safety. Nursing & Health Sciences, 10: 144-150.
