Assignment: Reflect On Potential Opportunities

Assignment: Reflect On Potential Opportunities
Assignment: Reflect On Potential Opportunities
To Prepare:
Revisit the Congress.gov website provided in the Resources and consider the role of RNs and APRNs in policy-making.
Reflect on potential opportunities that may exist for RNs and APRNs to participate in the policy-making process.
Post an explanation of at least two opportunities that exist for RNs and APRNs to actively participate in policy-making. Explain some of the challenges that these opportunities may present and describe how you might overcome these challenges. Finally, recommend two strategies you might make to better advocate for or communicate the existence of these opportunities to participate in policy-making. Be specific and provide examples.
With approximately 4 million nurses in the United States alone, nursing is the world’s largest medical profession.
As a result, nurses have the ability to have a huge impact on global policy and politics.
Nurses, in fact, have a moral and professional obligation to participate in legislation that affects their patients.
Nurses are ultimately lobbying for their patients when they influence politics to better healthcare delivery.
Regrettably, nurses have had little say in policy that influences healthcare delivery in the past.
There are various reasons for nurses’ lack of involvement in policy and politics.
A lack of awareness, insufficient skills, and limited opportunities for participation are only a few of the causes.
Another impediment is the nursing profession’s lack of formal health-care policy education.
Time and resources are further barriers to the nursing profession’s involvement in politics.
Furthermore, studies suggest that nurses are not given enough support in order to develop the evidence required to impact healthcare policy.
Regardless of the many constraints that limit the nursing profession’s political influence, nurses are essential to the formation and implementation of healthcare policy.
Nurses, being the world’s largest medical profession, should be at the forefront of reforming the healthcare system.
However, they will need to collaborate with members of other medical professions, such as physicians, in order to do so.
Nurses must be adept in patient care, interdisciplinary cooperation, informatics and technology, applying evidence-based practice, and quality improvement in order for this to happen.
Nurses are frequently upset by policies influencing nursing practice, especially when those policies are established by people with little or no experience in the healthcare field.
Negativity, disillusionment, resentment, and burnout are common outcomes of dissatisfaction.
Nurses should instead put their frustrations into making a constructive impact in their field.
“As nurses, we need to conceive of policy as something we can affect, not something that occurs to us,” says Oestberg.
The truth is that any nurse can have an impact on local, state, and federal policy and politics.
Nurses can become politically involved on a local level by taking on leadership roles in the healthcare system or contacting elected authorities regarding industry-related legislation.
Nurses can pursue formal political training, participate on city councils and committees, and even run for local government.
Even simple things like exercising one’s right to vote can have an impact on healthcare policy.
Nurses can participate in policy and politics at the state and federal levels by joining a professional nursing group.
These groups frequently hire lobbyists to bring nursing issues to Congress.
Nurses can also write to their state legislators to express their concerns about healthcare policy.
Internships with elected leaders are available for nurses who want to work directly on healthcare issues.
Nurses can also run for state office; the Florida State Legislature currently has two nurses serving.
“If nurses don’t stand out for topics that are important to us,” Oestberg says plainly, “those with competing interests in healthcare may be the only ones whose voices are heard.”
Nurses in the United States can influence healthcare policy and politics by uniting their voices.
Politics, according to Marquis and Huston, is “the art of wisely employing legitimate power.”
The nursing profession has the ability to have a substantial impact on global healthcare policy.
Furthermore, today’s nurses are younger, more educated, and more diverse.
They infuse the nursing profession with additional vitality, creativity, and inventiveness.
They might even bring more political activism with them.
Nurses, on the other hand, require assistance in order to achieve change.
And that help begins at home.
Nurses’ families and friends should urge them to participate in political engagement.
Nursing schools should integrate healthcare policy education in their curricula, as well as urge nursing students to participate in politics.
Additionally, nursing school faculty members should participate in policy reforms as role models for their students.
Finally, businesses must give time, resources, and opportunities for staff nurses to impact local, state, and federal policy.
After all, healthcare law affects us all in the end.