URI Nursing Professor Betty Rambur focuses on need to innovate in health care management in her latest book
By Ross Balding
There are many areas in which the United States Healthcare system could improve, but URI College of Nursing Professor Betty Rambur believes the biggest issues are in finance and policy. Her book titled Health Care Finance, Economics, and Policy for Nurses evaluates our complex system through the lense of the Nursing field.
Rambur held a book signing last Friday and gave an accompanying lecture in White Hall, focusing on why our healthcare system is focusing more and more on profit and equity as opposed to actual healthcare.
The Registered Nurse holds a Ph.D. in the field, and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, which only has 2,300 Fellows nationally. She is also the Routhier Endowed Chair for Practice at the University, which means she focuses on programs to develop students for the nursing field outside of their classes.
Professor Rambur is trying to transform healthcare in America, hosting a series of free webinars on health system transformation.
During her lecture, Rambur offered some sobering statistics on the cost of healthcare in the U.S. More than $3.3 trillion is spent on care each year — the most in the world — yet the country isn’t close to the top in terms of quality of care. In fact, healthcare is the third leading cause of death in the country, largely due to medical error and overtreatment, and one-third of the money spent is wasted.
“Our system creates incentives for the most expensive, invasive care, even if that care does not offer value,” Rambur said.
One solution Rambur offered was to shift from a volume-driven system, which prioritizes number of patients served, to a value-driven system, which focuses more on the quality of care and whether it is effective. She also detailed in her lecture how health insurance works, the re-emergence of reinsurance and rising premium costs.
“Insurance costs are largely a reflection on the effectiveness of a healthcare system,” she said.
To help combat the waste and ineffectiveness in the healthcare industry, universities, including URI, are focusing more on innovative care in nursing programs. At URI, that effort will manifest in the form of two courses — one on policy, law and ethics, and another grand challenge course called “The Troubling Case of US Health Policy and Politics,” taught by Rambur herself.
“We are teaching you all the basics, but also want to express to you these new trends so you can fly with both wings after graduation,” said Rambur.
Ross Balding is a senior journalism student and intern with the Academic Health Collaborative.