NURS 6050 Policy and Advocacy for Improving Population Health

Assignment: Advocating for the Nursing Role in Program Design and Implementation

As their names imply, the honeyguide bird and the honey badger both share an affinity for honey. Honeyguide birds specialize in finding beehives but struggle to access the honey within. Honey badgers are well-equipped to raid beehives but cannot always find them. However, these two honey-loving species have learned to collaborate on an effective means to meet their objectives. The honeyguide bird guides honey badgers to newly discovered hives. Once the honey badger has ransacked the hive, the honey guide bird safely enters to enjoy the leftover honey.

Much like honeyguide birds and honey badgers, nurses and health professionals from other specialty areas can—and should—collaborate to design effective programs. Nurses bring specialties to the table that make them natural partners to professionals with different specialties. When nurses take the requisite leadership in becoming involved throughout the healthcare system, these partnerships can better design and deliver highly effective programs that meet objectives.

In this Assignment, you will practice this type of leadership by advocating for a healthcare program. Equally as important, you will advocate for a collaborative role of the nurse in the design and implementation of this program. To do this, assume you are preparing to be interviewed by a professional organization/publication regarding your thoughts on the role of the nurse in the design and implementation of new healthcare programs.

To Prepare:

• Review the Resources and reflect on your thinking regarding the role of the nurse in the design and implementation of new healthcare programs.
• Select a healthcare program within your practice and consider the design and implementation of this program.
• Reflect on advocacy efforts and the role of the nurse in relation to healthcare program design and implementation.

The Assignment: (2–4 pages)

In a 2- to 4-page paper, create an interview transcript of your responses to the following interview questions:

• Tell us about a healthcare program, within your practice. What are the costs and projected outcomes of this program?
• Who is your target population?
• What is the role of the nurse in providing input for the design of this healthcare program? Can you provide examples?
• What is your role as an advocate for your target population for this healthcare program? Do you have input into design decisions? How else do you impact design?
• What is the role of the nurse in healthcare program implementation? How does this role vary between design and implementation of healthcare programs? Can you provide examples?
• Who are the members of a healthcare team that you believe are most needed to implement a program? Can you explain why?

Policy and Advocacy for Improving Population Health Sample Answer

Interviewer: Inform us about the healthcare program, its costs, and projected outcomes

Nurse: The current healthcare program within my practice is a webinar on tobacco cessation for 2022. The programs aim to evaluate the evidence-based tobacco use interventions, including providing information about E-cigarettes and cessation (WAKE AHEC, 2022). The program will incur costs catering to the professional trainers running the education series on truths about E-cigarettes and cessation interventions. Also, the program will need funding to purchase training materials like posters. Other additional costs that will be essential include purchasing a projector and catering for refreshments for all attendees. The projected outcome is to train the healthcare providers on the best interventions for cessation and gain more knowledge about e-cigarettes to be in a position to provide the patient with better healthcare services.

Interviewer: Who is the program’s target audience?

Respondent: The program’s target audience will involve different interprofessional healthcare providers. They will include the physicians, their assistants, psychologists, dentists, nurse practitioners, dental assistants, licensed and registered practical nurses, substance abuse counselors, professional counselors, respiratory therapists, case managers, and social workers. The reason for involving these interprofessional healthcare providers is to ensure they understand more about tobacco’s effects on the patients and how to engage in evidence-based treatment and cessation interventions to reduce tobacco-related mortality and morbidity rates.

Interviewer: Outline the nurse’s role in the healthcare program and provide examples.

Respondent: Most cessation programs in the past have been targeting tobacco users, intending to help them stay tobacco-free. However, the 2022 program focuses on nurses and other healthcare oprofessionals to equip them with current information and evidence-based interventions that will enable them to counsel patients with tobacco-related needs. Therefore, the main nurses’ role in the program will be collaborating with other professional teams to learn more about intervening on tobacco-related issues. According to Malone et al. (2018), nurses’ role in healthcare is essential since they interact more with the patient population. Hence, the program will be important to nurses since they will provide knowledge on the best way to implement the program to meet the patient populations’ needs and preferences.

 Interviewer: What role do you have as an advocate for the healthcare program’s target population? What’s your input on the design decision and any other impact on the design?

Respondent: According to Jongen et al. (2019), point-of-care nurses must have advocacy skills to address work-related concerns, advocate for the profession and enhance a positive work environment. Hence, for the program, my role will be advocating for the nursing profession since nurses spend most of the time with the patient population, especially to learn how to effectively care for and promote safety practices when attending to patients with tobacco-related illnesses. My input as a nurse in the program is viable since the webinar will require the engagement of nursing professionals to address the most appropriate evidence-based intervention concerning tobacco cessation.

Interviewer: What roles do nurses have in program implementation? How do these roles vary during healthcare program design and implementation? Provide examples.

Respondent: Nurses have a crucial role in healthcare program implementation. Mainly, nurses must have a definite way to induce the proposed healthcare programs in their nursing practices to ensure that they offer the target patient population satisfactory and patient-centered practices. Hence, the probability of nurses’ roles varying between the design and implementation phases is high. That is because, in the design phase, the nurses’ main role is to propose an appropriate health program that will be safer and produce quality healthcare services for the patients. However, during implementation, nurses must incorporate the proposed program’s new guidelines into their existing nursing practices (Glasgow et al., 2018). For instance, in addressing tobacco cessation, the nurses will provide specifications for the program design regarding scope, size, sustainability, and scalability. However, the nurses will engage all proposed specifications when implementing the tobacco cessation program.

Interviewer: Which healthcare team members are more important in a program? Explain.

Respondent: Nurses are the most crucial members in any healthcare program implementation. The main reason is that they interact more with the patient population (Glasgow et al., 2018). However, it is necessary to incorporate other healthcare professionals like doctors and physicians since they help provide quality and safe healthcare services through interprofessional collaboration with nurses.

 

References

Glasgow, M. E. S., Colbert, A., Viator, J., & Cavanagh, S. (2018). The nurse‐engineer: A new role to improve nurse technology interface and patient care device innovations. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(6), 601-611.

Jongen, C., McCalman, J., Campbell, S., & Fagan, R. (2019). Working well: strategies to strengthen the workforce of the Indigenous primary healthcare sector. BMC health services research, 19(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4750-5

Malone, V., Harrison, R., & Daker‐White, G. (2018). Mental health service user and staff perspectives on tobacco addiction and smoking cessation: A meta‐synthesis of published qualitative studies. Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing, 25(4), 270-282. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12458

WAKE AHEC (2022). Webinar (Livestream): Tobacco Use – Evidence-Based Interventions: Cessation and the Truth about E-Cigarettes. https://www.wakeahec.org/courses-and-events/62773/webinar-livestream-tobacco-use—evidence-based-interventions-cessation-and-the-truth-about-e-cigarettes