Read: Nurse Knowledge and engagement in health policy making: Findings from a pilot study (Links to an external site.) (Lewinski, 2018). The healthcare industry is made up of diverse people and teams.
1. Read: Nurse Knowledge and engagement in health policy making: Findings from a pilot study (Links to an external site.) (Lewinski, 2018)
The healthcare industry is made up of diverse people and teams. This includes individuals who create policies, groups who lobby for legislation, and the people and teams who implement and follow laws and policies. For this assignment, you will reflect on your role, past, present, and future, regarding health policies.
While research is encouraged for this assignment, in-text citations are not necessary. The purpose of this assignment is to provide your instructor with your knowledge framework and allow you to reflect on your knowledge and identify biases.
In an introductory paragraph, briefly summarize your scope of knowledge regarding health policy, both state/federal, and organizational policies.
In a second paragraph, explain why you wish to develop a deeper understanding of the policy creation, implementation, and assessment process. For example, how will understanding health policy improve your professional practice at a nurse practitioner?
In a closing paragraph, address the following questions:
• What biases/strong opinions do you have regarding health policy (state, federal, organizational policies)?
• What caused those biases/opinions to develop (personal experiences, patient interactions, etc.)?
• How will you respectfully maintain or evolve your bias/opinions as you advance in this course, and your career as a nurse practitioner?
• What is your primary source of information for staying up to date on state and federal health policy (names of publications, websites, organization-disseminated information, etc.)?
APA style should be followed throughout this assignment. Please include a title page.
Support your work with 2 Scholarly references.
Nurses play a critical role in providing good health services.
The aim of this study was to examine the factors related to the participation of nurses in the provision of health services and the perceived benefits and barriers to their participation in health policy making.
A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in several hospitals affiliated with the Iran University of Medical Sciences during the first half of 2018 on a sample size of 220 people. A standard, self-management questionnaire was used to collect the data, and SPSS 21.0 software was used for data analysis.
None of the demographic characteristics were found to be significantly associated with nurse participation in or the perceived barriers and benefits to health policy making.
The results of this study show that the participants were involved only moderately in health policy making. “Providing written reports on problems or receiving consultation from a related official” was the performance item most frequently cited by the participants in terms of involvement, whereas “Disappointment in work procedures” was the most frequently cited barrier item affecting involvement.
Despite the importance of the nursing role in health polices, this study indicates that nurses participate at only a moderate level in health policy-making activities.
Providing more information to nurses regarding health policies, enhancing nurses’ image of their job and their perceptions about the importance of their participation in the health policy, increasing partnerships with nurses at the upper levels of health services management, and supporting nursing professional organizations in the field of health policy are potential strategies for encouraging greater nursing participation in health policy making.
Historically, healthcare systems invest most heavily on illness-related care. This emphasis on illness instead of health has given rise to the notion of medical priority and produces substandard economic and health outcomes (Peters, 2002). The mission of a healthcare system is to ensure societal health, which is only fulfilled through the favorable provision of services.
The only way to achieve this is to make provisions for the constituent elements of service delivery. As a critical component of health service delivery in all countries, nurses contribute to public health policies as key actors (Clarke, Swider, & Bigley, 2013). Nurses are the largest group of healthcare workers involved in healthcare service delivery (Lewinski & Simmons, 2018).
Moreover, the more than 35 million people estimated to work as nurses worldwide make nurses the largest workforce in the health system (Shariff, 2014). Given the rapid development and transformation of healthcare systems, it is incumbent upon nurses to advance in line with these changes. To this end, nurses must be involved in formulating health policies rather than merely implementing these policies (Shariff, 2015).
Health policies are basically policies that are directly associated with the governmental health sector in any country (Shariff, 2014). These policies involve areas such as healthcare services, costs, and healthcare quality and access.
Quality provision, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness improve the quality of life and welfare of society (Heydari et al., 2013). The participation of nurses in the development of health policies ensures safe, effective, accessible, and low-cost services (Jivraj Shariff, 2015). Health policies affect the nursing profession and healthcare (Shariff, 2015).
Discussions about health policies and health-policy reforms have focused increasingly on the need for greater participation by nurses and midwives.
This need was first identified formally in 2000 and gained a significantly higher profile through its inclusion in the 2002 World Health Organization (WHO) Report. Political participation includes involvement in political development processes, including identification of policy areas and policy formulation, implementation, evaluation, and modification (AbuAlRub & Foudeh, 2017).
Despite receiving encouragement to participate, nurses are notably absent from health policy reforms in comparison with other health-affiliated professions and groups (Ditlopo, Blaauw, Penn-Kekana, & Rispel, 2014). The central role of nurses in health service delivery helps explain their commitment to change policies from ethical and professional standpoints (Sayers & DiGiacomo, 2010; Shariff, 2014; Whitehead, 2003).
The presence of nurses alongside patients during major life events such as births, illnesses, and recovery has indeed put them in an optimal position to provide health policy information (AbuAlRub & Foudeh, 2017).
With their knowledge and experience acquired in the work environment, nurses enjoy a unique position in the health team that allows them to contribute to health policies by enabling effective strategies (Etowa et al., 2016).
These characteristics increase the need for greater nursing involvement (AbuAlRub & Foudeh, 2017). Studies point to limited nursing participation in health policy development activities (Shariff, 2015).
This may be attributed to the unheard voice of this hardworking group (Cheraghi, Ghiyasvandian, & Aarabi, 2015); the lack of nursing involvement at the higher levels of the healthcare system (Shariff, 2014); the lack of a proper understanding of the reasons or benefits of participation (AbuAlRub & Foudeh, 2017); the lack of knowledge, skill, support, time, negative perceptions of the nursing profession in society; and the lack of authority and available structural resources (Shariff, 2014). Many nurses attempt to play a political role that allows them to influence the activities of health policies directly (Whitehead, 2003).
To exert influence in the world of politics, nursing leaders need to have certain characteristics that enable them to develop health policies effectively (Jivraj Shariff, 2015). In Iran, nurses engage in health policy activities through governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Governmental organizations include the Deputy of Nursing in the Ministry of Health and the national Board of Nursing.
Nongovernmental organizations include the Iranian Nursing Organization, Iranian Nursing Association, Iranian Nursing Scientific Association, and Iranian Cardiac Nursing Association (Esmaeili, Dehghan-Nayeri, & Negarandeh, 2013).
Unfortunately, despite the struggle over the past three decades by Iranian nurses to increase their participation in the policy-making process, their position in this process remains unclear (Cheraghi et al., 2015). All of the studies addressing the participation of Iranian nurses in health policy activities have been qualitative, with no related quantitative studies published.
This study was conducted in 2018 with the aim of examining the involvement of Iranian nurses in health policy activities and studying the involvement-related benefits, barriers, and health outcomes.
The questions asked in this study included:
(a) What is the level of involvement of Iranian nurses in health policy activities?
(b) What are the perceived benefits of involvement in health policy activities?
(c) What are the perceived barriers to participation in health policy activities?