Essay NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

Essay NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

Essay NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

Advocacy Through Legislation

Identify a problem or concern in your state, community, or organization that has the capacity to be advocated through legislation. Research the issue and complete the sections below. For each topic that requires the listing of criteria, a minimum of two criteria should be identified and discussed. Add more rows as is appropriate for the topic/proposal.

NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

ProblemIn no more than 250 words, describe the problem, who is affected, and the current ramifications. Explain the consequences if the issue continues.
Today’s healthcare systems are in trouble and nurses are aware of the need of a change. The experience of many healthcare professionals in practical settings reveals that legislation and policy-making is an effective way out of those issues faced by practitioners daily. However, there must be some type of advocacy role that can influence the change in politics, laws, and legislatures that govern the larger healthcare systems in the United States (Allen, 2020). Nurses are motivated by the fact that they should learn new things and bring innovation through legislation by implementing and introducing change. This change can be of many types ranging from customers’ care, quality of settings, quality of hospital resources, or information technology incorporation supported by legislation in the parliament. In a world where nurses are not completely prepared to meet the challenges of information technology and embrace innovations, successful policy advocacy and legislation can provide them the necessary power and energy along with political skills to play their game in the healthcare arena. Since information technology is poised to incorporate significant improvement in healthcare systems, the automation of clinical, administrative, and financial tasks should be improved using artificial intelligence and IT without errors. Unfortunately, the adoption of IT in healthcare settings in America is slow due to improper legislation process and no governing body to legitimize the IT initiatives. The health technology and digital information has led to many advances such as the use of Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) and Application Programming Interface (APIs) in healthcare settings; however, the federal government has not crafted ample policies to support the implementation of these tools (Gerrand, & Nkomo, 2020). Moreover, amidst the global pandemic, meeting the remote care needs of patients is vital using IT tools and technologies. Federal regulators and law-makers have provided temporary rules to enact the use of telehealth and digital tools. However, the stakeholders can get the best benefits if the government continues to support them with legislation. If this continues without legislation, nurses and hospital staff will still feel problems to improve their quality of care using IT tools.
Idea for Addressing SolutionIn no more than 250 words, outline your idea for addressing the issue and explain why legislation is the best course for advocacy.
Since nurses are taking a great interest in public affairs and policy matters to improve the healthcare quality and utilization of IT resources, they are advocating the change in government politics significantly. This can include facilitating or helping a legislation-maker introduce a legitimate bill that can help the healthcare organization work with legislators stop a bill that could harm a legislator. According to Ledovskikh, & Vlassov (2021), legislative advocacy is necessary to promote efforts to influence the introduction and enactment of legislation. This includes nurses to share their views with legislators on a particular issue of IT implementation in the organization and asking them to vote a particular way on the bill (Ledovskikh, & Vlassov, 2021). The advocacy can be performed by nurses using a telephone or sending legislators an email or a letter. The most important aspect of America’s government system is that it lays significant importance of legislation to improve implementations of technologies. Legislation advocacy is a vital process that helps to remind the legislators and leaders of their responsibilities to improve healthcare systems. This can be done through motivating them to bring more public policy changes. Therefore, if nurses use their will and motivation to act and use their energy to influence legislators, the implementation of IT and telehealth in the industry can be enhance and safeguarded by legislation.  Moreover, recent research by the Congressional Management Foundation reveals that advocacy works by making a significant difference with individualized letters to help an organization improve its quality of care. This process can successfully urge legislators to compose and promote bills. This also motivates them to research different policy options and ask for committee meetings.
Research the IssuePerform research and compile information for your idea. Present substantive evidence-based findings that support your ideafor addressing the problem (studies, research, and reports). Include any similar legislation introduced or passed in other states.
Evidence 1	The scholarly evidence related to healthcare IT implementation and telehealth provided by many researchers’ claims that the initiatives are slow due to lack of interest of policy-makers to protect IT innovation with legislation in hospital settings. According to Phillips (2019), the use of IT is vital for aggregating and collecting clinical information using databases that facilitate patients’ access. There are a range of new ideas nurses can benefit from by using IT in the healthcare settings and enhance quality of care, however, the research states that the industry has been slow to adopt those changes and investing insufficiently.
Evidence 2	This is supported by Zhang (2019) research that reveals healthcare industry ranked 38th among 53 industries in the United States in terms of using information technology. This implies that much of the clinical data is stored in an unorganized way and a few patients can access their caregivers remotely using email Ids. Therefore, most patients cannot even benefit from simplest of the resources due to inefficient remote collaboration using Skype or smart phones. Moreover, the current IT systems are incapable of collecting the vast amount of data and storing the right information. There is a lack of software and hardware support vital for analysis and access of information (LeoGrande, 2019).
Stakeholder SupportDiscuss the stakeholders who would support the proposed idea and explain why they would be in support.
Stakeholder(s) Supporting 1	Federal regulators must be approached to meet the remote patient collaboration needs amidst COVID-19 era to facilitate good access to telehealth and digital technologies. According to Shah (2021) research, the establishment of the Digital Health Center of Excellence (FDA) has been a great initiative in many states to regulate the use of digital and telehealth tools and products. In 2020 elections, the Government of the US promised to play a vital role in the promotion of health technology. The Hospitals Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) is a great initiative that requires Medicare to reduce their fees regarding patient’s readmissions. Since confusing medical bills and records create ample issues for doctors, nurses, administrative staff, and patients in the absence of IT legislation, healthcare advocacy can motivate many stakeholders such as doctors, nurses, administration officers, patients, government officials, and insurance companies, and healthcare researchers. The healthcare advocate can help patient’s access better healthcare facilities and also educate patients so they could make well-informed healthcare decisions (Phillips, 2021). They can make legal and administrative tasks for hospital admits easy. The supporting healthcare advocates can easily communicate with healthcare providers and also speak up for patients’ rights with a proper policy support. Doctors should be advocates because they need to clarify diagnosis and conditions to patients and their families. Medical billing officers should be advocates because they have to negotiate bills with the healthcare providers.
Stakeholder(s) Supporting 2 Essay NRS 440 VN Topic 4 CLC Leadership Styles and Nursing -CLC Presentation KR	Health insurance companies should advocate because they advise patients to select the best healthcare plans and insurance policies. Moreover, insurance companies like Medicaid and Medicare should support this idea because they need to inform patients about their wellness benefits such as preventative care and the utilization of remote telehealth tools amidst the global pandemic. These companies in the United States other insurance providers and improve their services and plans to facilitate more patients. This means policy advocacy can enhance their process of figuring out the coverage guaranteed by insurance policies. This will allow them to improve their process of copying and coinsurance tasks and benefits (LeoGrande, 2019).
Stakeholder OppositionDiscuss the stakeholders who would oppose the proposed idea.Explain why they would be in opposition and how you would prepare to debate or converse about these considerations.
Stakeholder(s) Opposed 1	Despite several benefits of healthcare legislation in the United States, there are groups opposing it for several reasons for years. For example, the American Medical Association opposes several healthcare legislations including the American Healthcare Act (ACA) released by Congress. The opposing group claims that the healthcare act is not aligned with the health reforms set forward by the American Medical Association to safeguard the rights of patient citizen (Ledovskikh, 2021). The organization states that the ACA is far from being perfect and the existing version of this legislation is unsupportable. Therefore, there should be a replacement bill that makes this legislation void; Americans cannot afford to lose their healthcare coverage’s due to an improper legislation. Similarly, if IT equipment for remote collaboration is not utilized by nurses and practitioners with accuracy and timely manner, the AMA and other stakeholders would surely oppose it.
Stakeholder(s) Opposed 2	Moreover, the American Hospitals Association (AHA) also opposes the American Healthcare Act (AHA) to repeal it because they believe that the legislation needs to be witnessed through the lens of patients. Lacking the level of transparency and seamlessness is going to bring forward many opposing stakeholders to oppose the act.
Financial Incentives/CostsIn no more than 250 words, summarize the financial impact for the issue and the idea (added costs, cost savings, increased revenue, etc.). Provided support.
Several studies conducted in the past ten years reveal that there are cost and financial benefits for healthcare providers and clinics for advocacy of legislation. Hospitals can reduce their overall treatment, diagnosis, and administration costs by using remote collaboration technologies supported by state and federal regulations. However, Garran (2020) reveals that there is a huge uncertainty in the healthcare insurance industry regarding the consequences of several laws enacted in the past couple of years. This shows that there are pros and cons of healthcare legislation as all insurance companies are worried about erosion of premiums causing their profits to decrease constantly.  Since increased cost of technology also increases company’s expenses, it can also have an impact on its financial value. A range of payment changes will be made if legislations are passed that will cause a slow growth of healthcare costs. The new healthcare IT reforms laws can bring a number of changes in payments and disbursements systems of hospitals. However, the cost of purchasing hardware, software licenses, and IT professionals and managers would increase the wages and IT procurement expense of the organizations. Healthcare systems modernization will also result in payments innovations such as higher reimbursement for preventative care services. This calls for the formation of an independent payment advisory board that can provide suggestions to improve quality and reduce cost of patient care and Medicare programs.
Legislature: Information Needed and Process for ProposalDiscuss the how to advocate for your proposal using legislation. Include the following:
Provide the name andcompletecontact information for the legislator.	The nurses and doctors should urge Senators and policy-makers at Congress to support their medical legislations for ensuring better care of patients. Hospitals should contact Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who also helped to form Foster Care Act 2021 for ensuring Medicaid community for children. Dialing 1-202-224-3121 can help to contact the members of Congress.
Describe the steps for how you would present this to your legislator.	Moreover, the nurses can put their bills suggestions by placing in special boxes known as the hopper boxes built by the Congress (Duffy, 2018). As a nursing head, the quality of care can be significantly improved using bill proposals to legislators to promote nurses’ voices in the parliament. However, before considering a bill for making it a law, the members of Congress will research it properly and collect all the facts related to the issue faced by nurses. They will organize their input and talk to sub-committees such as Medicare Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Committees. The committees will vote up their recommendations and recommend to the House of Senate.
Outline the process if your legislatorchooses to introduce your idea as a bill to congress.	The bill becomes a law when a legislator accepts the idea provided by nurses who write the text of the bill and sent it to a member of Congress to officially introduce it. The Congress becomes the sponsor of the bill and tries to gain support from members. The House and Senate approved versions of the bill must be identical before they can be forwarded to the President. Therefore, legislation process can be a daunting task and there is always a potential for a bill to depart. Hence, nurses should respond to call to action when the legislation is still in the pending stage.
Christian Principles and Nursing AdvocacyIn no more than 250 words, discuss how principles of a Christian worldview lend support to legislative advocacy in health care without bias. Be specific as to how these principles help advocate for inclusiveness and positive health outcomes for all populations, including those more vulnerable, without regard to gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, religion/belief, etc.
Since Christians believes that God loves all humans and cares for them, a true Christian should be involved in the advocacy of legislation. The advocacy is also inspired by the Bible that speaks for justice and God’s love for his creations (Allen, 2020). The following verse from the holy book shows it all: “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. — Proverbs 29:7”. This shows that God calls people to advocate justice and patient care through legislation.  The fact remains that Christianity supports anyone who is in favor of eradication of racial discrimination, ill patient care, gender discrimination in terms of healthcare, and human wellbeing. Patient care can be associated with the holy concept of religion that urges all citizens to act empathetically towards others. The followers of Christianity strongly believe that all patients and especially ICU patients should be treated equally and fairly. It is a moral, ethical, and religious duty of all healthcare professionals to support any holistic or noble cause that supports patients’ better care to form a healthy society. Therefore, in the United States, Christianity being the dominant religion, urges its followers to promote justice in the society by helping people to enjoy wellbeing. Hence, there is a huge impact of Christianity on healthcare improvements by advocacy of legislation that supports human health and wellbeing.

References 

Allen, E. A. (2020). Major Healthcare Legislation: Effects and Reactions by Large US Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, 2001-2018.

Duffy, R. M., Narayan, C. L., Goyal, N., & Kelly, B. D. (2018). New legislation, new frontiers: Indian psychiatrists’ perspective of the mental healthcare act 2017 prior to implementation. Indian journal of psychiatry, 60(3), 351.

NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

Gerrand, P., & Nkomo, T. (2020). Impact of Christianity and Ancestral Beliefs on Black South Africans’ Decision-Making Regarding the Adoption of Abandoned Children. The British Journal of Social Work.

Ledovskikh, Y. A., & Vlassov, V. V. (2021). May the Cleaning of Prescriptive Documents Using Best Evidence Reduce the Cost of Prescribed Healthcare? Value in Health Regional Issues, 25, 108-111.

LeoGrande, W. M. (2019). The Contras and Congress. In Reagan versus the Sandinistas (pp. 202-227). Routledge.

Phillips, J. D. (2021). Speak Softly and Carry a Big Checkbook: How the Special Relationship Between the Healthcare Industry and the United States Government has Prevented the Passage of Universal Healthcare Legislation.

Shah, K. T. (2019). Privacy and Security Issues of Wearables in Healthcare (Doctoral dissertation, Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering.).

NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR

Zhang, B. (2019). Human Rights Value Based on the Legislation Principle of the Basic Healthcare and Health Promotion Law. J. Hum. Rts., 18, 190.

Essay NRS 440 VN Topic 4 Advocacy Through Legislation KR