Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis

Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis

Title: Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis

Assignment Health Policy Proposal Analysis

Advanced practice nurses play a critical role in the provision of care that meets the healthcare needs of the diverse populations they serve. Since the recognition of the roles they play, advanced practice nurses have increased access to care in the modern America where there has been a significant shift in population profile. Over the past few years, significant transformations have been witnessed in the US healthcare system. They include increased coverage of patients under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and rise in the baby boomers’ population. The impact of these changes is that the US is expected to experience an acute shortage of healthcare workers to meet the changing population dynamics. Advanced practice nurses could act as a solution to this problem. However, their scope of practice remains limited in most of the states in the US (Altman et al., 2016). Therefore, there is an increased need for the policy makers, states, and government agencies to consider eliminating barriers to full scope of practice for advanced practice nurses as a way of addressing the anticipated challenges affecting the healthcare system.

The selected recommendation for the policy brief from the IOM report is removing scope of practice barriers for advanced practice nurses. According to the report, advanced practice nurses should have the autonomy to practice fully according to the level of their training and education (Feller, 2018). The barriers to full practice among them can be eliminated with the adoption of various interventions by the Congress, state legislature, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of Personnel Management, and the Federal Trade Commission. Some of the recommended interventions in the report include the need for the amendment of the requirements for the participation of advanced practice nurses in the Medicare program and the need for insurance to cover the services provided by the advanced practice nurses. It also includes the need for a review of the existing as well as proposed state regulations guiding the professional practice of advanced practice nurses (Institute of Medicine, 2011). Through these interventions, the authors of the report are optimistic that the scope of practice for advanced practice nurses will be expanded in accordance with their training and education.

Background

The role of advanced practice nurses in health dates back to the 1890s when Lilian Wald developed the Henry Street Settlement where visiting nurses provided care to the poverty-stricken immigrants in the state. In 1925, Mary Brechneridge, a certified nurse midwife, established decentralized clinics in Kentucky with the aim of preventing maternal and infant mortalities due to shortage of physicians in the region. However, it was until the 1960s when nurse practitioner’s role was recognized in the US healthcare. Nurse practitioners were seen as the most effective professionals that could provide care meeting the needs of the underserved rural populations in America. In the modern century, the professional roles and scope of practice for advanced practice nurses has expanded significantly (Keeling, 2015). However, full practice is yet to be recognized in most states, thereby, preventing advanced practice nurse from delivering care that optimize the health outcomes of the diverse populations using the knowledge from their education and training.

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis

According to Altman et al. (2016), the scope for advanced practice registered nurses in most states in America

currently remains limited. This is despite them having been trained to provide different service to address the healthcare needs of the diverse populations in America. The limitations are attributed to factors such as state laws, outdated insurance reimbursement schemes, federal policies, and institutional culture and policies (Altman et al., 2016). The extent of the limitation in the scope for advanced practice nurses can be seen from the statistics that only 22 states alongside the District of Columbia in America have adopted full practice laws and authority licensure for nurse practitioners. Additionally, 17 states have been categorized as reduced practice state while 12 states have been categorized as restricted practice states (Peterson, 2017). Therefore, significant interventions need to be embraced for the scope of advanced practice nurses to be expanded in the state.

The Impact of Recommendation

The recommendation to remove barriers to the scope of advanced practice nurses will have significant impacts. Firstly, it will expand the nature of services provided by these nurses to the diverse populations in America. In specific, the underserved populations will benefit from increased access to and availability of the service they need. The removal of barriers will also expand the role and autonomy of advanced practice nurses in healthcare. It will challenge them to explore additional ways in which their role in healthcare can be improved. It will also strengthen multidisciplinary collaboration since they will have a greater role to play in the delivery of healthcare than it is currently (Woo et al., 2017). However, other groups of healthcare providers are skeptical with the action since it will diminish the role they play in healthcare. Despite this, most of the healthcare stakeholders are optimistic that the move will result in significant improvement in the US healthcare system (Bosse et al., 2017).

Current Solutions

Several interventions can be embraced to eliminate barriers to scope of advanced practice nurses. One of them is reforming the Medicare regulations that prevent advanced practice nurses from providing full care according to their training and education. The state laws should also be revised to provide full scope of practice for the advanced practice nurses. Institutional culture and policies should be transformed to accommodate the full scope for advanced practice nurses. Lastly, advanced practice nurses should advocate for the recognition of the system wide benefits associated with their full scope in the provision of their services (Brassard & Smolenski, 2011).

Status in Health Policy Arena

Policy interventions have been embraced to address the limitations in scope of advanced practice nurses. According to Altman et al. (2016), 44 state action coalitions have been adopted since the release of IOM report. This has led to eight more states being classified as full practice states and others improving their laws to expand the practice of these nurses. The ACA also passed laws that prohibit the discrimination of healthcare providers who act according to their scope of certification by the insurers. The CMS has also broadened its concept of medical staff to allow nurse practitioners to practice in accordance with the provisions of their scope. The Federal Trade Commission has advocated for the removal of barrier for advanced practice nurses through their persuasion of states with restricted or reduced practice. Therefore, with these policy changes, it is anticipated that the barriers to scope of advanced practice nurses will be eliminated in the near future in all states in America (Altman et al., 2016).

Assignment: Health Policy Proposal Analysis Conclusion

The role and need for advanced practice nurses in the modern and future America cannot be underscored. It is therefore important that barriers to their full scope of practice be addressed in all the states. The elimination of these barriers should be a collective responsibility of all the stakeholders involved in healthcare. Through it, optimum outcomes of care will be realized by the states.

Nurses engaged in the policy arena often are asked to provide information on a health care topic of interest to policy makers. This is frequently accomplished through developing a policy brief. A policy brief advocates for a particular recommendation (prior to the enactment of a policy). Learning how to write a policy brief in a clear, succinct, scholarly, and professional manner is an essential skill for advanced practice nurses.

For this Assignment, you will assess one of the recommendations from the Institute of Medicine’s The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Report Recommendations. You will then develop a policy brief to advocate for this recommendation (the written policy brief is due in Week 7).

To prepare:

Review the Lavis et al. article on preparing and writing policy briefs provided in the Learning Resources.
Select one of the recommendations within the IOM The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health: Report Recommendations to focus on for this assignment.
Research the history of the problem behind the recommendation and what has been done to try to solve the problem.
What does the recommendation say should be done? Are there any groups, nursing and others, currently supporting work to implement the recommendation (e.g., Kaiser Family Foundation, professional organizations)? Does the recommendation suggest specific groups that should be involved in the implementation? Think critically about how the recommendation should be implemented – did the IOM get it right? What other strategies are possible to consider?
By Day 7 of Week 7

To complete:

Develop a scholarly and professionally written 2- to 3-page single-spaced policy brief on the recommendation you selected from the IOM report following the format presented in the Lavis et al. article. Include the following:
Short introduction with statement of the problem.
The selected recommendation (from the IOM Report)
Background
Current characteristics
The impact of the recommendation from the perspective of consumers, nurses, other health professionals, and additional stakeholders
Current solutions
Current status in the health policy arena
Final conclusions
Resources used to create the policy brief

For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, 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.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• Student paper example
• Citing Sources
• The Writing Center is a great resource