The integration of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into the healthcare system of the contemporary times is critical in determining the way forward in the education and training of health practitioners. An emphasis on behavioral health and alignment of lifestyles with wellness and disease avoidance poses various challenges to the education of these practitioners. Changing people’s behavior and lifestyles to ensure wellness and good health is a challenge in that it entails a direct interaction with people to persuade and convince them of the need to adjust to specific guidelines. The implication is that communication skills will become a critical area of coverage in the healthcare curriculum to ensure the competency of those involved in addressing the needs of the population, particularly those at risk. Communication skills become a prerequisite for the physicians in promoting wellness and behaviors aimed at prevention of various illnesses, such as immunization, regular exercises, adequate and quality sleep, avoidance of risk factors such as smoking, among others (Bezner, 2015).
Another challenge of embarking on the behavioral health and lifestyles of individuals to ensure wellness is that a physician must have the courage to ask questions, some of which may be quite sensitive. He or she must also be in a position to elaborate on the need to engage in various endeavors, such as physical exercises. This calls for various competencies that may necessitate the adjustment of the curriculum to meet such skills. As Rozensky (2014) states, the healthcare policymakers are faced with the challenge of deciding the participants of the next generation healthcare system and this would require a consideration of various competencies in alignment with the ACA mandates. Each profession in the healthcare realm will be characterized with specific attributes that will be critical in determining the retention of various individuals in the workforce. In this sense, the physician will be different from a psychologist by virtue of possessing specific traits that will enable him or her to engage in specific endeavors rather than general practice.
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References
Bezner, J. R. (2015). Promoting health and wellness: Implications for physical therapist practice. Physical Therapy, 95 (10), 1433-1444. https://doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20140271
Rozensky, R. H. (2014). Implications of the Affordable Care Act for education and training in professional psychology. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 8 (2), 83-94. Doi: 10.1037/tep0000021
