How Healthcare Policy Impacts Advanced Practice Nursing

How Healthcare Policy Impacts APN
Explanation of how healthcare policy can impact the advanced practice nurse profession
The role of APN is to provide primary, specialty, and acute care through assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of those who seek healthcare services. Healthcare policies are meant to improve healthcare services, and thus, they affect the APN profession. However, the specific effect of any policy depends on the specific policy (Taft & Nanna, 2008). For example, one of the policies that affected the APN profession was the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This act, at its core, was to provide healthcare to the marginalized, to those with chronic sicknesses, and at the same time, more healthcare from the hospital in favor of outpatient.
Because of the nature of the ACA, the APN profession was impacted through the increment of persons seeking healthcare. There were more- and sicker patients entering the healthcare system, and thus, the APN profession has to adjust accordingly to provide care to more (Lathrop & Hodnicki, 2014). Because the healthcare system was expanded to cover more, there was an increment in the emergency room visits. ACA provided care to persons with chronic disease, and thus, APNs have to offer more emergency room treatment. Lastly, healthcare delivery shifted from the hospital. ACA sought to reduce the costs of healthcare delivery, and thus, it required more outpatient care. This meant that APNs working in outpatient, they had to visit communities more.
In summary, a healthcare policy can affect the APN profession in terms of the time and resources required.
Why advocacy is an essential component of the APN's role
In the formulation of new healthcare policies, nurses play a crucial advocacy role. This component of their profession is vital because they are in the first line in implementing any new healthcare policies. As a function of their work, they are a vital bridge between their patients and legislators. Given the health delivery role of APNs, they have a special positioning to understand the specific of any matter regarding care delivery and how it is to affect the outcome (Choi, 2015). As the professional interacting with patients, APNs have a function of protecting their patients from harm, communicating the preferences of patients, advocating for and fostering collaboration, providing relevant and essential information for decision-making, and being the voice of and supporting the voice of patients about choices in care delivery. Also, given their role and being members of families and communities, APN's advocacy role is essential for their families and the communities from which they come from. For example, APNs share with legislator healthcare costs, provide information on healthcare resources available and persisting limitations, as well as providing expertise on healthcare infrastructure (Choi, 2015; Gerber, 2018). Lastly, as APNs, they have a critical role in advocating for policy change, especially through their associations.
Four Pillars of Transformational leadership and their effect on policy change
Idealized influence – a leader with idealized influence can make good decisions for the organization, and thus, they are trusted by those under them (Metz et al., 2019). This pillar is important for policy change because once a leader with idealized influence notes or identifies a problem that can be solved through policy change, they can make the right policy recommendation and, eventually, policy change.
Inspirational motivation – transformational leaders with inspirational motivation can mobilize those under them to commit to the vision of the organization. This pillar is important for policy change because it means that such a person can mobilize all parties involved in the policy change process to commit to the process (Flemming, 2017). For example, an APN who is inspirationally motivated can motivate the elected leaders to commit to the policy change process.
Intellectual stimulation – this pillar describes a leader who can encourage creativity and innovation by challenging the status quo (Metz et al., 2019). Thus pillar is very relevant to policy change because a person with intellectual stimulation can bring on board the relevant persons and establish solutions through critical thinking to solve prevailing problems appropriately.
Individual consideration – this pillar describes a leader who is considerate and encourages those he/she leads to reach their goals (Metz et al., 2019). This quality means that in the policymaking process, an individual with this quality will lobby and mobilize all the parties to deliver on the expected/set goals – the policy.
References
Choi, P. P. (2015). Patient advocacy: the role of the nurse. Nursing Standard (2014 ), 29(41), 52.
Flemming, P. L. (2017). Building a Climate of Change with a link through Transformational Leadership and Corporate Culture: A Management key to a Global Environment. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 7(1), 44-55.
Gerber, L. (2018). Understanding the nurse's role as a patient advocate. Nursing2019, 48(4), 55-58.
Lathrop, B., & Hodnicki, D. R. (2014). The Affordable Care Act: Primary care and the doctor of nursing practice nurse. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 19(2).
Metz, S., Piro, J. S., Nitowski, H., & Cosentino, P. (2019). Transformational Leadership: Perceptions of Building-Level Leaders. Journal of School Leadership, 29(5), 389-408.
Taft, S. H., & Nanna, K. M. (2008). What are the sources of health policy that influence nursing practice?. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 9(4), 274-287.