Health care in crisis : hospitals, nurses, and the consequences of policy change / Theresa Morris.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-233) and index.

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.

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. -- Provided by publisher.