Policy and Advocacy Essay Discussion Paper

Discussion 2: The Role of the RN/APRN in Policy-Making
Word cloud generators have become popular tools for meetings and team-building events. Groups or teams are asked to use these applications to input words they feel best describe their team or their role. A “word cloud” is generated by the application that makes prominent the most-used terms, offering an image of the common thinking among participants of that role.
What types of words would you use to build a nursing word cloud? Empathetic, organized, hard-working, or advocate would all certainly apply. Would you add policy-maker to your list? Do you think it would be a very prominent component of the word cloud?
Nursing has become one of the largest professions in the world, and as such, nurses have the potential to influence policy and politics on a global scale. When nurses influence the politics that improve the delivery of healthcare, they are ultimately advocating for their patients. Hence, policy-making has become an increasingly popular term among nurses as they recognize a moral and professional obligation to be engaged in healthcare legislation.
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.
By Day 3 of Week 8
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.

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Policy and Advocacy

Post an explanation of at least two opportunities that exist for RNs and APRNs to actively participate in policy-making.

Policy making and advocacy are important tools for building strong health care systems. They allow nurses to represent their patients in voicing the issues that affect their health and lives while holding the government accountable for meeting their needs. Through knowledge of health determinants, nurses are able to understand some of the root causes of poor health within the population and provide guidance on the appropriate solutions. Policy and Advocacy Essay Discussion Paper Towards this end, there are two opportunities for nurses to participate in policy-making. Firstly, they can leverage their knowledge of social determinants of health. As health care workers whose professional responsibilities include identifying these determinants, nurses can leverage their knowledge as expert sources of information who inform policy making. Secondly, nurses form the largest population of a single health care profession. This large number ensures that nurses have a loud voice that cannot be ignored in civic engagement. The large vote that nurses have ensures that they form a powerful force in policy making and can greatly influence the direction of health policies (Patton, Zalon & Ludwick, 2018).

Explain some of the challenges that these opportunities may present and describe how you might overcome these challenges.

The two discussed opportunities for nurses’ participation in policy making present some challenges. Firstly, nurses can only present their perspective and this is only one perspective among many other perspectives. This implies that even if nurses are in large numbers, their voice will only be considered one among the voices of other stakeholders. Secondly, nurses are typically engaged in an advisory role in the policy making with elected and appointed officials having the final choice of policy to implement. This implies that nurses must have the capacity to convince these officials that their input is valuable and necessary (Loversidge & Zurmehly, 2019). Finally, nurses form a large population such that there are no guarantees that they would always have a common voice. It is not unusual for nurses to disagree among themselves over how a policy should be framed and worded. This can make it difficult to nurses to leverage their large numbers and present a single voice (Patton, Zalon & Ludwick, 2018).

Recommend two strategies you might make to better advocate for or communicate the existence of these opportunities to participate in policy-making.

There are two strategies for communicating the existing of the discussed opportunities. The first strategy is to conduct policy dialogue. This allows nurses to reach a consensus among themselves over the framing and wording of policy so that they are better able to leverage their large numbers in policy making. The second strategy is to build advocacy capacity among nurses so that they are able to leverage their knowledge of social determinants of health. Nurses are aware of what needs to be changed, and capacity building provides them with the tools to propose the necessary policy changes (Nickitas, Middaugh & Aries, 2016).

References

Loversidge, J. & Zurmehly, J. (2019). Evidence-Informed Health Policy: Using EBP to Transform Policy in Nursing and Healthcare. Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

Nickitas, D., Middaugh, D. & Aries, N. (2016). Policy and Politics for Nurses and Other Health Professionals (2^nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.

Patton, R., Zalon, M. & Ludwick, R. (2018). Nurses Making Policy: From Bedside to Boardroom (2^nd ed). Springer Publishing Company. Policy and Advocacy Essay Discussion Paper