discussion
Learning Goal: I’m working on a nursing discussion question and need a sample draft to help me learn.
please give positive feedback
Chloe Hespeler
RE: Discussion – Week 8
Main Post Question
I believe the Congress.gov website provides great grounds for a starting point for those interested in becoming active participants in policy-making. For starters, the website makes it easy to navigate to specific committees relevant to the area of interest. For example, under the Senate’s health, education, labor, and pensions committee link, there is information on meeting times, schedules, and how to become a member (Congress.gov, n.d.).
RNs and APRNs hold invaluable power when it comes to healthcare policy-making. Their unique perspective and first-hand experiences offer significant insight. One way is by taking on leadership positions at their place of employment and creating changes at the local level. Additionally, nurses can join professional organizations. Depending on the level of the organization (state, national, or global), members have the opportunity of impacting healthcare policies through lobbying (American Nurses Association, n.d.).
Some difficulties that RNs and APRNs may face when becoming involved in policy-making is the inability to fulfill all aspects of policy implementation and evaluation as outlined by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.). For example, nurses may not be able to always find a comparison group when discussing their findings or even when attempting to create a study. For example, when discussing how to reduce falls, it is hard to implement a study in a real-life scenario without causing potential harm to patients by trying out new fall prevention tactics. Furthermore, is difficult when it comes to healthcare research studies and politics because of HIPPA regulations which permit patients to withdraw their information at any given time.
I believe that in order for nurses to become more active in policy-making, there has to be more education regarding the fact that nurses truly hold a significant spot in the realm of policy-making. For example, I have a BSN degree, however, in my four years of college, we never learned about health policy. I believe incorporating health policy classes into both ADN and BSN programs would get more nurses involved in policy-making. Also, there should be more opportunities at local hospitals and other places of RN employment which offer information sessions about becoming more involved in lobbying organizations to promote positive change and outcomes for our patients.
