INTRODUCTION
Policies in
healthcare have an impact on individuals, whether at the institutional, local,
state, or federal level. As a profession, nursing has the opportunity to
influence health policies on all levels. By understanding healthcare policies,
nurses can be advocates for patients as a unified group.
Although the majority of healthcare professionals are nurses, nursing has many
opportunities to increase their involvement in healthcare policy. Healthcare
and nursing practice are influenced by policy. Policy affects care delivery,
patient preferences, and reimbursement. Nurses are in a unique position to
influence policy due to the holistic care model and patient-centered care.
For this task, you will
analyze a federal and state policy that relates to a current area of focus in
healthcare. You will discuss how the federal and state policies
influence patient and healthcare delivery. You will consider the population
impact of the policies and if the policies are equitable at both the federal
and state level.
Your goal in this task is to discuss how a nurse can impact policy at the state
and federal level. You should consider the role of the nurse in the development
of policy at the state and federal level and how the nurse will support or
influence improvements to the policy at each policy level.
REQUIREMENTS
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total
of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual
source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if
cited correctly. The similarity report that is provided when you submit your
task can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it
provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each
requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric
aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to
Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task
requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and
submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).
A. Compare public
healthcare policies at the federal and state level that affect the provision of
patient care and healthcare delivery by doing the following:
1. Describe one federal
and one state public healthcare policy that affect the
provision of patient care and healthcare delivery.
2. Explain how each policy
works (e.g., Is it mandatory? Will enforcement be necessary? Who is responsible
for administering the policy?).
3. Discuss each policy’s
impact on the population(s) by answering the following questions:
• What populations will
benefit?
• How will they benefit?
• What populations will be
negatively impacted?
• How will they be
impacted?
• Does the policy impact
health disparities and health equity?
4. Discuss the evidence
that informs each policy, including two scholarly
evidence sources published within the last five years to
support your discussion.
a. Discuss whether the
evidence identified in part A4 supports the chosen policies, including any modifications
that should be made to each policy based on the identified
evidence.
B. Explain the role of the
nurse in policy development and how the nurse could impact the administration
of, or the revision of, a policy at both federal and state
levels.
1. Reflect on barriers to
the nurse’s engagement in each of the following healthcare
policy areas:
• development
• administration
• revision
2. Reflect on ways that you
will engage with healthcare policy in each of the following
areas in your future nursing practice:
• development
• administration
• revision
C. Acknowledge sources, using
in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or
summarized.
D. Demonstrate professional
communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
