HHP 2 RESP1

QUESTIONS:

1. Explore the critical healthcare policy issues affecting healthcare access, cost, and quality. Describe at least one issue that relates to each principle. 

2. How does the Affordable Care Act address each of these variables?

3. Define health policy in the context of the US government. Expound on the scope and role of such.

4. Critically appraise one current health policy issue. Provide a brief summary of your appraisal here. Then, perform a search to find ways that nurses have or could become involved in this policy issue through active participation on committees, boards, or task forces at the institutional, local, state, regional, national, and/or international levels. Give specific examples of ways you could advocate for nursing for this issue.

RUBRIC: 20 pts

Exceptional

Two posts are written in response to fellow learners’ post and are each between 100-150 words. Responses are substantive insightful and contain at least one reference.

STUDENT’S POST:

The critical healthcare policy issues that influence the quality, access, and cost of care include health information technology, healthcare insurance coverage, and nurse staffing policy (Schnall et al., 2018). Information technology is an essential tool that affects the quality of care and patients' safety to reduce medical errors. Health information technology can also impact access and cost of care through telehealth services that make services more readily available. Similarly, the issue of coverage has a significant impact on access and quality of care as the uninsured receive poorer quality of care or delayed care. Staffing issues such as nurses' short-staffing and lack of adequate primary care providers can affect the quality of care and the health care outcomes for patients due to the patient-nurse ratio. Inadequate nurse staffing is linked to medical errors, missed care, job stress, and dissatisfaction due to burnout (Aiken et al., 2018). These issues can affect the ability of nurses to provide quality and safe care to patients. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has reduced the uninsured population and enabled more individuals to access health care services, particularly low-income people. However, the ACA has not reduced the cost of healthcare.

Health policy is the decisions, actions, and plans undertaken to obtain specific healthcare objectives within society. Peters (2018) notes that health policy is a set of overarching goals and principles that determine how care is provided and accessed. The role of health policy is to improve patient safety, achieve quality standards, and promote positive outcomes. One of the current health policy issues is health insurance coverage. Health insurance improves access to care, and private, and public sources provide it. It ensures that all individuals' access to affordable health coverage offers benefits that move towards a more productive and healthier society. Nurses can become involved in health insurance coverage policies to increase access to care by participating in policy advocacy. Fundamental change is necessary to shift the U.S health system coverage toward ensuring all individuals and focusing on coordinated and comprehensive primary care. A healthcare system that prioritizes primary care and is comprehensive also emphasizes the affordability and cost of care.

Whenever possible, nurses can participate in committees and task forces at various levels, including local, state, and international levels. Task forces and committees play an essential role in furthering nursing research and nursing education readiness for the changing healthcare environment. Nurses and DNPs can also get involved in politics and policy by joining the professional nursing organization at the local, state, and federal levels. With involvement in boards and professional organizations, nurses can lobby to bring critical health issues (Halstead, 2017). For example, as a DNP, I can advocate for the issue of health insurance coverage by becoming a political activist to influence reforms. In addition, I will influence health policy via political involvement to improve healthcare delivery. Other than political activism, I will be involved in interprofessional collaboration and increase partnerships with nurses at the upper levels to support health insurance coverage for all people. 

References

Aiken, L. H., Cerón, C., Simonetti, M., Lake, E. T., Galiano, A., Garbarini, A., ... & Smith, H. L. (2018). Hospital nurse staffing and patient outcomes. Revista Médica Clínica Las Condes, 29(3), 322-327.

Halstead, J. A. (2017). Professional nursing organizations. Issues and trends in nursing: Practice, policy, and leadership, 107-118.

Peters, D. H. (2018). Health policy and systems research: the future of the field. Health Research Policy and Systems, 16(1), 1-4.

Schnall, R., Cho, H., & Liu, J. (2018). Health information technology usability evaluation scale (health-itues) for usability assessment of mobile health technology: Validation study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6(1), e4. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.8851 (Links to an external site.)