Improving Safety And Quality Of Health Care Essay

This assignment requires that I develop and thoroughly analyze a public policy in order to advocate for one that improves the health of the public and/or the nursing profession globally (local, state, national or international). To do this, I must reflect on several aspects of being a policy maker within the nursing profession. I was instructed to consider the following:

The four spheres of political action in nursing as mentioned by Mason, Leavitt, and Chaffee (2011) includes the workplace or workforce, the government, the organizations, and the community. The authors further stated that although the four spheres overlap at times, the action performed in any one of these spheres can cause a reaction in any of the others. Nurses are a part of the community in which they live and can influence health and social policy within their workplace, which can have a profound impact on the organization. Furthermore, the government can pass health care policies, which in turn causes the organization to change their policy. Thus, affecting healthcare providers in the workplace and the community at large. An example of

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

Los Angeles, Doctor and founder John McLaughlin, came up with the idea to reduce health care costs and improve patient safety

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

Nurses’ involvement in policy debates brings our professional values to bear on the process. (Warner, 2003) The Master’s prepared nurse’s goal as an advocate should be to fight to enhance the client’s wellbeing in every possible way, at every available opportunity. This can be achieved by being part of organization that advocate for patients’ right as well as for better working condition for our colleagues. Also, nurses could choose to get involved in politics or lobby on behalf of other nurses.

Patient safety and risk management should be intertwined in the organization. Patient safety is where the patient does not experience unnecessary harm or pain or other suffering during their treatment (Youngberg, 2011). Minimizing risk is to decrease unnecessary losses or improve or implement process that will decrease adverse event (Youngberg, 2011). The Samantha Jones adverse event is a perfect example to enhance patient safety through improved process or project. To understand the event a root analysis needs to be done and action items are created from this analysis.

Political activism is an important complement for nurses in the clinical practice. Nurses are in an exceptional position not only to provide quality bed side care to their patients but also to advocate for change within the community and political field. Common problem affecting a group of people can be a political issue. Identifying the cause of this issue and advocating to solve the root cause with the help of decision makers like politicians, hospital executives, managers or government bureaucrats, nurses can bring beneficial changes in Canadian Health care system.

There are many way in which nurses could contribute leadership to improve the health care system to provide advance patient care. IOM states that, “serving as strong patient advocates, nurses must be involved in decision making about how to improve the delivery of care” (IOM, 2011, p. 222). In order to have a voice in the health care reform, nurses need to take opportunities to be involve in committees or board meetings and participate in making policies. The IOM “committee believes there will be numerous opportunities for nurses to help develop and implement care

“Every 25 minutes, 1 baby is born suffering from opiate withdrawal. Newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) are more likely than other babies to also have low birth weight and respiratory complications” (Dramatic Increases in Maternal Opioid Use and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, 2015, Paragraph 2). To insure a better life for these babies, people are trying to create an Act called the Plan of Safe Care Improvement or otherwise known as the Infant Plan of Safe Care Improvement. This Act is meant to protect future babies from not only being born drug dependent because of their mothers, but also ensuring them a drug-free environment after birth. It will also “get help for the mothers and any other guardians involved in drug addiction”

Healthcare policy is dynamic and ever changing, especially in our society today with the many changes in government control, insurance company influence, and actual delivery of healthcare services. In order to corral our healthcare system and ensure that there is quality control amongst all populations, health policies must be put in place. Health policy is defined as many things due to its dynamic nature but the assigned text expresses a definition that encompasses all aspects of what health policy is for us today, “Authoritative decisions made in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of government that are intended to direct or influence that actions, behaviors, or decisions of others”(Longest, p. 5, (2010)). Among the many reasons why health policy is pertinent to our society an aspect of health policy that I feel is most important is in regards to public health practices. Health policy is the reason why populations that whom otherwise would not receive the absolute needed healthcare, actually get to receive healthcare. The financial aspect of healthcare is quite steep and more often than not healthcare services are not sought out by populations because they cannot afford to do so. With health policy the policymakers allow for the proper and equal disbursement of goods and services to ensure that everyone is remaining healthy no matter what

Who better to help discover research and help implement changes to healthcare issues than the nurse on a working level. I understand the uncertainty that nurses feel when having to advocate change as our textbook and other sources have reported, Education about policy, advocacy, politics should be initiated during the education process in the nursing schools, if this occurs the graduating nurse is very comfortable with the policy and politics policy and she will make a difference. This process should be consistently addressed in the work place. (Milstesd 2016). The Future of Nursing Report by the IOM states that “Nurses should be full partners redesigning health care. I strongly agreed with this statement, how many times has a new policy or change has been implemented that wasn’t beneficial for patient or you as the nurse. When nurses seek out to identify problems or issues of concern, take an active political role, to make a difference in the policy making process, we will finally see real change occur in health

I believe that nurses are capable of influences that lead to changes. Many nurses do have a caring nature, however, this doesn’t mean that nurses are incapable of encouraging a change in power or political processes. “Power is a complex and extensive concept in nursing, which has a decisive impact on the accomplishment of duties, satisfaction and achievement of professional goals.” (Sepasi, Abbaszadeh, Borhani, & Rafiei, 2016)

It is a very interesting journal to read this week, "Patients and Nurses: A Powerful force", by Brown and Malone (2007). Time has changed and the adage that knowledge is power will not be automatically work. Which means that although a person has enough knowledge/idea, he/she will not be able to reach their goal or submit the idea without a hard work. The knowledge/idea has to put in action to work in order to create a power (p.2-3). There are ways that nurses can use their clinical power to convince the legislature, organizations, and the public support and acquire safe staffing, such as Maryland and Gonzalez (2012) claimed that "Registered nurses can impact public policy through advocacy" (p.2). Nurses should be an advocate for their patients because they communicate with them and create patient nurse relationship. As an advocate for the patient nurse should be able to persuade the legislator to achieve the goal. If the nurse believe that safe staffing is important, nurses have to collect evidence/data to support the issue and bring it this issue by joining a political party and elect a candidate who will support the nursing current issues and bring it to them to the legislative. Furthermore, Bethany Hall-Long (n.d.) stated that she started her political field from being a volunteer. She feels

Some hospital trusts and health authorities consistently outperform others on different dimensions of performance. Why? There is some evidence that “management matters”, as well as the combined efforts of individual clinicians and teams. However, studies that have been conducted on the link between the organisation