diamond casino slot machine How Tom Brady & Gisele Bündchen Celebrated Daughter Vivian's BirthdayAnthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reverses decision to put a time limit on anesthesiaAUSTIN, Texas , Dec. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As the nurse practitioner (NP) profession looks ahead to 2025, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners® (AANP) has identified five key health trends that will impact the health care system in the coming years. "As health care trends evolve, the demand for America's 385,000 licensed nurse practitioners remains high due to their exceptional, patient-centered approach to care," said AANP President Stephen A. Ferrara , DNP. "Patients nationwide deserve access to high-quality health care, and NPs are experts in various fields, including primary care, elder care, mental health care, substance use disorder treatment and artificial intelligence (AI) innovations. Nurse practitioners are dedicated to providing evidence-based care as the health care landscape continues to change." The Top Five Health Care Trends of 2025 1. AI Technologies Can Improve Patient Care – Nurse practitioners are leading the way to improve health care access and outcomes for millions of patients and leveraging the potential of new technologies, including AI, to benefit their patients. In their constant pursuit of excellence in health care, NPs are exploring the capability of AI to analyze vast amounts of patient data from remote monitoring devices to allow more proactive interventions and added patient engagement in care. The potential for AI to automate non-clinical routine tasks, like note-taking and documentation, will allow NPs and other providers to focus even more on patient interactions. Used properly, AI can make a real difference while reducing documentation and administrative burdens. Nurse Practitioners are well-positioned to evaluate and guide the implementation of safe and effective AI technologies and must be actively involved throughout the entire AI development and integration process to improve patient outcomes. 2. Growing Demand for Elder Care – As the U.S. population ages, the rising demand for elder care requires a growing health care workforce. Every Baby Boomer will be at least 65 by 2030, with the oldest members closer to 85 – meaning 1 out of every 5 Americans will be eligible to enroll in Medicare. At the same time, the NP profession is 385,000 strong, ensuring needed access to care for patients. NPs provide care to seniors in a wide variety of settings, including telehealth and in - home care. 3. Mental Health Integration into Primary Care – NPs and other primary care providers are increasingly integrating patients' mental health into primary care screenings for both physical and mental health problems, during their visits. Mental health conditions have increased sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic, and more than 122 million people live in areas where access to treatment is limited due to provider shortages. With a strong focus on whole-patient care, NPs understand the important role mental health plays in the overall well-being of their patients. In addition, increasing numbers of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners will play a vital role in meeting the nation's need for diagnosing, treating and managing mental health conditions. 4. Limited Access to Primary Care Services – More than a quarter of Americans reported they are not up to date on health screenings and immunizations, according to AANP's State of Primary Care in America national survey. The survey also found that nearly one-third of adults, particularly those who are younger, Hispanic or living in rural areas, reported difficulty accessing health care services. Among adults who did see a provider for primary care, nearly a third (31%) turned to telehealth or to convenient care clinics. This survey echoes AANP's 2023 survey, which found that more than 25% of respondents had waited more than two months for an appointment with a health care provider. Adopting Full Practice Authority policies removes barriers to care so patients can choose an NP to access preventive screenings and health services, which are essential to improving the health of the nation. 5. NPs Treating Patients with Substance Use Disorders – According to the National Institute on Drugs and Addiction's 2024 fact sheet, more than 40 million people in the United States had a substance use disorder (SUD), and only 6.5 percent received treatment. More than 100,000 people died from an overdose in 2021. NPs who specialize in SUD and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment are experts in this addiction crisis, prescribing medications to aid in recovery and ensuring that their patients have access to counseling, behavioral therapy, peer support and other interventions. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners ® (AANP) is the largest professional membership organization for nurse practitioners (NPs) of all specialties. It represents the interests of the more than 385,000 licensed NPs in the U.S. AANP provides legislative leadership at the local, state and national levels, advancing health policy; promoting excellence in practice, education and research; and establishing standards that best serve NPs' patients and other health care consumers. As The Voice of the Nurse Practitioner ® , AANP represents the interests of NPs as providers of high-quality, cost-effective, comprehensive, patient-centered health care. To locate an NP in your community, visit npfinder.com . For more information about NPs, visit aanp.org . SOURCE American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft, attorneys say in new court papers. Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access. “Mississippi’s harsh and unforgiving felony disenfranchisement scheme is a national outlier,” attorneys representing some who lost voting rights said in an appeal filed Wednesday. They wrote that states “have consistently moved away from lifetime felony disenfranchisement over the past few decades.” This case is the second in recent years — and the third since the late 19th century — that asks the Supreme Court to overturn Mississippi’s disenfranchisement for some felonies. The cases use different legal arguments, and the most recent attempt in 2023. The new appeal asks justices to reverse a July ruling from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws. Stripping away voting rights for some crimes is unconstitutional because it is cruel and unusual punishment, the appeal argues. A majority of justices in June when they cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places. Attorneys who sued Mississippi over voting rights say the authors of the state’s 1890 constitution based disenfranchisement on a list of crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit. A majority of the appeals judges wrote that the Supreme Court in 1974 reaffirmed constitutional law allowing states to disenfranchise felons. About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban between 1994 and 2017. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to an expert who analyzed data for plaintiffs challenging the voting ban. To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people. The other recent case that went to the Supreme Court argued that authors of Mississippi’s constitution when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose the right to vote. In that ruling, justices declined to reconsider a 2022 appeals court decision that said Mississippi remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by later altering the list of disenfranchising crimes. In 1950, Mississippi dropped burglary from the list. Murder and rape were added in 1968. The Mississippi attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level writing bad checks. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a 2023 dissent that Mississippi’s list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose.”

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( MENAFN - AFP) Apps infused with AI are being marketed to schools across the world and governments are rushing to embrace the technology, despite experts raising serious doubts. The sector known as Ed Tech exploded during the COVID pandemic as schools closed to stop the spread of infection and millions of children were forced to learn in front of screens at home. As demand dried up after schools reopened, Ed Tech startups tried to win back investment by adding AI to their products and marketing. Tech titans like Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI have also spied an opportunity, promoting their AI products to schools or partnering with startups. While many education ministries have announced plans to deploy AI apps, there are plenty of dissenting voices. The UN's education body UNESCO last year eviscerated the record of online learning during Covid, saying the rapid rollout of tech solutions was a "tragedy" that had increased inequality and worsened learning outcomes. UNESCO's Manos Antoninis told AFP that AI might have some utility in education but right now it "seems to be creating more problems than it is solving". He cited concerns that companies were using data for commercial purposes, deployed biased algorithms and overall were less concerned with educational outcomes than with their bottom line. "I think the unfortunate thing is that education has been used as a bit of a Trojan horse to access future consumers," he said. - 'Ease the pressure' - During the pandemic boom in 2021, venture capitalists pumped more than $17 billion into Ed Tech. But that has slumped to $3 billion this year, about the same as last year, according to analysts PitchBook. But from North Carolina to South Korea it is a different story, where education officials have been encouraging teachers to use generative AI. Britain has already rolled out a homework app called Sparx Maths that uses algorithms to tailor children's learning. It recently announced a further multimillion-dollar outlay on AI programmes to "ease the pressure" on hard-working teachers by helping with lesson plans, marking and assessment. The European Union supports several learning apps, and several EU countries have experimented with them. China is a huge booster of AI in the classroom and has a national strategy for digitising education -- its centrepiece being a national education platform of tools and online courses. Yet the on-the-ground reality is often messy. India boasted one of the liveliest startup scenes in the sector during the pandemic, including a firm called BYJU's which was once the world's most valuable Ed Tech startup. Yet when schools in New Delhi were forced to close because of smog last month, there were no flashy apps to help. "It is not feasible for them to take online classes," 29-year-old teacher Vandana Pandey told AFP, saying many of her pupils had no smartphones or connectivity at home. BYJU's has faced allegations of financial misconduct and only narrowly avoided bankruptcy in a recent court hearing. In richer countries, the arrival of AI has received a tepid reception. Only six percent of US secondary school teachers polled by Pew Research Center in May thought using AI in education would do more good than harm. France announced it would roll out an AI-powered homework app called MIA in secondary schools earlier this year, but quietly dropped the project as a political crisis rumbled on. Many British parents are also not keen on Sparx Maths. "Don't know a single child that likes it," said one user on the popular Mumsnet forum. Another said the app "ruins any enjoyment of the subject" while a flood of other parents said their children "hated" the app. - 'More like isolation' - Aside from grievances over individual apps, educators doubt whether many of these firms are aiming at the right target. Almost all Ed Tech products promise to "personalise" education, often deploying AI to monitor a child's work and tailor workplans to suit their needs. Officials from Britain to Beijing have lauded this goal. But Antoninis said the rhetoric around personalisation "risks making us forget that a lot of learning is actually social, and children learn from interaction with each other". Leon Furze, a former teacher who now works as a consultant focusing on generative AI in education, was also wary about personalisation. "AI is touted as a solution to personalised learning, but it's a very specific kind of 'personal' which I think seems more like isolation," he told AFP. Both Antoninis and Furze warned that technology was no panacea, rather it was a tool that could help in some limited situations. The hard work, as ever, would be done by humans. "Tech solutions aren't going to solve the bigger socio-economic, cultural, and political challenges being faced by teachers and students," said Furze. MENAFN13122024000143011026ID1108991983 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.FCT wins PHC leadership challenge award