Assignment: Advocating Through Policy
Assignment: Advocating Through Policy
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Assignment: Advocating Through Policy

Advocating Through Policy

As noted by Dr. Stanley and Dr. White in this week’s media presentation, professional nurses should be engaging in advocacy efforts to improve health and nursing practice through involvement in the policy process at the institutional, local, state, or federal levels. This array of possibilities for involvement provides opportunities for all nurses, regardless of time, or other possible constraints. Successful policy making is a collaborative effort, and one that commands mutual respect from all involved. Your involvement in policy making can lead to expanded opportunities as both a nurse leader and as a respected member of an interprofessional health care team.

Note: This Discussion provides a forum for discussing advocacy opportunities and honing your presentation skills in a small group setting.

To prepare:

Reflect on the insights offered by Dr. Stanley and Dr. White on engaging in advocacy through the policy process.
Identify a practice issue that is of interest to you and that could benefit from advocacy efforts through the policy process.
Consider the stakeholders and any special interest or professional organizations that would support your issue.

Develop a short, yet persuasive PowerPoint (up to 3 slides IN APA FORMAT) as follows:
1) Identify the practice issue that would benefit from being addressed through the policy process

2) Represent the key stakeholders (i.e. use graphical images when possible)

3) Propose one strategy for how a nurse could advocate for this issue

The PowerPoint should be succinct, visually appealing, and effective.

By Tuesday 5/8/18 6pm

Post your PowerPoint presentation.

Required Readings

Bodenheimer, T., & Grumbach, K. (2016). Understanding health policy: A clinical approach (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Medical.

Chapter 17, “Conclusion: Tensions and Challenges”

Assignment: Advocating Through Policy

This chapter concludes with final thoughts on the challenge of providing quality health care and controlling health care costs. The solution is likely to be resolved only by a collaborative approach, involving all health care stakeholders, and by health professionals taking the lead.
Howard, J., Levy, F., Mareiniss, D. P., Craven, C. K., McCarthy, M., Epstein-Peterson, Z. D., & et al. (2010). New legal protections for reporting patient errors under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act: A review of the medical literature and analysis. Journal of Patient Safety, 6(3), 147-152.

The authors studied the dissemination of information on the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA), a federal act that affords protection to those reporting medical errors. They found medical literature to be inadequate in this regard, and as a result, medical personnel were uninformed on their legal protections. This lack of information has become a barrier to policy implementation.

Jacobson, N., Butterill, D., & Goering, P. (2003). Development of a framework for knowledge translation: Understanding user context. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy, 8(2), 94–99.

Lau, B., San Miguel, S., & Chow, J. (2010). Policy and clinical practice: Audit tools to measure adherence. Renal Society of Australasia Journal, 6(1), 36–40.

The authors study the compliance to renal-care policies by health care professionals. They conclude with the necessity for nurses to support evidence-based protocols as well as to obtain continuing education on new protocols.

McCracken, A. (2010). Advocacy: It is time to be the change. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 36(3), 15-17.

The author proposes that nurses, as patient advocates, need to be more involved in the making of health care policy instead of reacting to policies that are constantly changing. The article provides a guide to help organize initial policy efforts.

Nannini, A., & Houde, S. C. (2010). Translating evidence from systematic reviews for policy makers. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 36(6), 22–26.

The article cites geronotological nurses as examples of those who are able to translate research into policy briefs that can be clearly understood by policy makers. Geronotological nurses are in this unique position because of their clinical experience and educational background.

Paterson, B. L., Duffet-Leger, L., & Cuttenden, K. (2009). Contextual factors influencing the evolution of nurses’ roles in a primary health care clinic. Public Health Nursing, 26(5), 421-429.

This article provides details on a study conducted in a nurse-managed clinic related to the changing roles of nurses. The authors found that nurses, in response to social, political, and economic forces, became involved in advocacy for the clinic through political action, government funding issues, and media relations roles.

Sistrom, M. (2010). Oregon’s Senate bill 560: Practical policy lessons for nurse advocates. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 11(1), 29-35. doi: 10.1177/1527154410370786

The author uses the efforts by a nurse advocate in lobbying for an Oregon bill related to healthy food in public schools to illustrate nurse advocacy and policy making. The bill, developed in response to childhood obesity, did not immediately become law. The author concludes with the importance of considering the political environment when creating successful policy.

Spenceley, S. M., Reutter, L., & Allen, M. N. (2006). The road less traveled: Nursing advocacy at the policy level. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 7(3), 180-194. doi: 10.1177/1527154410370786

Nurses have always been advocates at the patient-level of care, but the authors of this article promote the need for all nurses to become advocates at the policy level as well. They discuss factors that have kept nurses from getting involved with policy making and they provide strategies to resolve these challenges.

Wyatt, E. (2009). Health policy advocacy: Oncology nurses make a difference. ONS Connect, 24(10), 12-15.

The author presents information on two nurses who have become health care policy advocates—one as a policy maker and one as an elected legislator. Both have been able to use their perspectives from their nursing careers to affect health policy.

Zomorodi, M., & Foley, B. J. (2009). The nature of advocacy vs. paternalism in nursing: Clarifying the ‘thin line.’ Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65(8), 1746-1752.

The authors attempt to distinguish the concepts of advocating for a patient and paternalism, or overriding a patient’s wishes. They provide clinical examples to illustrate the differences between these concepts, and they conclude with strategies to use in practice.

Required Media

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Healthcare policy and advocacy: Advocating through policy. Baltimore: Author.

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 7 minutes.

In this media presentation, Dr. Joan Stanley and Dr. Kathleen White discuss how nurses can influence practice and engage in advocacy through the policy process.

Optional Resources

Birnbaum, D. (2009). North American perspectives: POA, HAC and never events. Clinical Governance: An International Journal, 14(3), 242–244.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Assignment: Advocating Through Policy
Assignment: Advocating Through Policy