NURS 6050 The Role of the RN/APRN in Policy-Making

NURS 6050 The Role of the RN/APRN in Policy-Making

Nurses, both registered nurses (RNs) and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), play critical roles in policy-making at the local level within their organizations and larger scale at state, federal, and even international levels. The first opportunity for nurses to contribute to policy-making is through being members of professional nursing associations or organizations like the American Nurses Association (ANA). They can also join professional associations based on their specialty like the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) (Hajizadeh et al., 2021). Through these associations, they contribute knowledge and participate in and carry out research studies on different aspects that influence policy-making based on their evidential findings. The second opportunity to participate in policy making is being patient advocate and member of lobby groups championing the interests of vulnerable and marginalized populations like the LGBTQ groups.

Conversely, these opportunities also present challenges that nurses must overcome to contribute to and enhance the quality of care. The first challenge having limited knowledge and understanding of the policy-making process, especially at the state and national levels. For instance, despite being the dominant profession in healthcare, nurses have limited representation at key decision-making levels, even in their workplaces (Barzegar et al., 2020). The other challenge is being too passive in decision-making activities and bodies. Nurses are never valued as members of decision-making teams. Again, nurses find the registration process of being members of a professional association complex (Turale et al., 2019). Therefore, reforming the joining criteria for these professional nursing associations is essential. Nurses should also be included and valued as critical assets to health organizations based on their role and contribution. They should form the core part of decision-making in their workplaces and organizations.

To advocate the application of these strategies, providers, and organizations should have effective communication platforms like the use of social media and in-house education and training to improve the level of expertise and understanding of the policy-making process (Rasheed et al., 2020). Social media is a core approach to enhancing and communicating these strategies to nurses as they can share and have a common approach. In-house training sessions are also essential as they communicate new approaches to health provision. For instance, the use of technology to improve policy-making efforts even at the organizational level through effective research and even interoperability.

References

Barzegar, S. M., Bahadori, M., & Alimohammadzadeh, K. (2020). The related factors of nurses’

participation and perceived benefits and barriers in health policymaking. Journal of Nursing Research, 28. https://doi.org/10.1097/jnr.0000000000000385

Hajizadeh, A., Zamanzadeh, V., Kakemam, E., Bahreini, R., & Khodayari-Zarnaq, R. (2021).

Factors influencing nurses’ participation in the health policy-making process: A systematic review. BMC Nursing, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00648-6

Rasheed, S.P., Younas, A., & Mehdi, F. (2020). Challenges, the extent of involvement, and the

impact of nurses’ involvement in politics and policymaking in last two decades: An integrative review. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 52(4), 446-455.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1111/jnu.12567

Turale, S., & Kunaviktikul, W. (2019). The Contribution of nurses to health policy and Advocacy

requires leaders to provide training and mentorship. International Nursing Review, 66(3), 302-304. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12550

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The Role of the RN/APRN in Policy-Making

Word cloud generators have become popular tools for meetings and team-building events. Groups or teams are asked to use these applications to input words they feel best describe their team or their role. A “word cloud” is generated by the application that makes prominent the most-used terms, offering an image of the common thinking among participants of that role.

What types of words would you use to build a nursing word cloud? Empathetic, organized, hard-working, or advocate would all certainly apply. Would you add policy-maker to your list? Do you think it would be a very prominent component of the word cloud?

Nursing has become one of the largest professions in the world, and as such, nurses have the potential to influence policy and politics on a global scale. When nurses influence the politics that improve the delivery of healthcare, they are ultimately advocating for their patients. Hence, policy-making has become an increasingly popular term among nurses as they recognize a moral and professional obligation to be engaged in healthcare legislation.

Resources

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

To Prepare:

• Revisit the Congress.gov website provided in the Resources and consider the role of RNs and APRNs in policy-making.
• Reflect on potential opportunities that may exist for RNs and APRNs to participate in the policy-making process.

By Day 3 of Week 8

Post an explanation of at least two opportunities that exist for RNs and APRNs to actively participate in policy-making. Explain some of the challenges that these opportunities may present and describe how you might overcome these challenges. Finally, recommend two strategies you might make to better advocate for or communicate the existence of these opportunities to participate in policy-making. Be specific and provide examples.

By Day 6 of Week 8

Respond to at least two of your colleagues’* posts by suggesting additional opportunities or recommendations for overcoming the challenges described by your colleagues.

*Note: Throughout this program, your fellow students are referred to as colleagues.

NURS_6050_Module04_Week08_Discussion_Rubric