Role of nurse practitioners in the healthcare policy
Role of nurse practitioners in the healthcare policy
Nurses nowadays are more involved or engaged in many health sectors mostly policies and advocacies to continue giving optimum care to their patients. Nurses are seeing a lot of workflow that needs to revised and/or change. The American Nurses Association provide support for state nurses association as they advance their own advocacy agendas, and help federal agencies and elected officials propose and enforce new laws that will advance the nursing profession (American Nurses Association, 2018).
Based on the analysis undertaken “policy influence is nurses” ability in influencing decisions and affairs related to health through political knowledge, effective communication, and collaboration with other members of the health team, which results in the improvement of nurses’ job environment and increase patient outcomes (Arabi, Rafii, Cheraghi & Ghiyasvandian, 2014). Nurses learned from their daily experiences in patient care, they start as a beginners and realized that there are a lot of policies that needs to be reviewed, our team of nine in our department meet twice a month to review policies that needs to be updated, some of them are new nurses with few years experiences, they have fresh ideas and eager to make changes for the safety of our patients and staff. “When the abilities of beginners are developed, they can involve in policy acumen, which is the ability to analyze policies and can actively analyze organizational process and health care services (Arabi, Rafii, Cheraghi & Ghiyasvandian, 2014).
Nurse practitioners are essential advocates for health care policy (Chilton, 2015). Those NPs who are members of professional nursing organizations have the credentials to offer relevant personal testimony supporting the need for a bill (Chilton, 2015).
Most challenges in program evaluation can be addressed with appropriate planning, the use of effective evaluation design, and the use of reliable or consistent indicators that can be measured using standardized methods of data collection (Milstead & Short, 2019).
There are numerous factors that affecting nurses and Nurse practitioners ability to be politically active in influencing health policy development, they don’t have extra time due to commitment in their daily nursing jobs, some nurses are not trained or don’t have enough knowledge or they don’t have the resources on how to get involve in policy making or review, and most of them are not interested in policy.
Some ways to overcome these challenges are; giving nurses and nurse practitioners extra trainings about policy and its effect to health care, give examples and credit units or extra points for their yearly salary raise, role models, being involved and gaining more experiences in policy development, educated and knowledgeable about health systems and policy development process, political activism and conducting research to expand knowledge (Sharrif, 2014). Being supported by professional organizations and developing leadership skills (Shariff, 2014).
Getting involve in many professional associations are a great example to start advocating for these opportunities that nurses and advance nurse practitioners has, knowing when to start and who to go to is another strategy also. I mentioned above that having a good role model would guide you through out the process. Thorough training and education from various associations to gain knowledge will be beneficial. Experiences from previous and current work are the best tool to use towards policy making and review approvals.
References
- American Nurses Association. (2018). Advocacy. Retrieved from .
- Arabi, A., Rafii, F., Cheraghi, M., & Giyasvandian, S. (2014). Nurses’ policy influence: A concept analysys. Retrieved on October 19, 2019 from
- Chilton, L. (2015). Nurse practitioners have an essential role in health policy. Retrieved on October 19, 2019 from
- Milstead, J. A., & Short, N. M. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Barlett Learning.
- Shariff, N. (2014). Factors that act as facilitators and barriers to nurse leaders’ participation in health policy development. Retrieved on October 19, 2019 from