Health Leadership Policy
The purpose of this assignment is to discuss healthcare policy of the APN profession and how Transformational Leadership can help to influence policy changes. This week’s assignment focuses on the APN as a Health Policy Leader, one of the nine NONPF NP competencies. Students will analyze how health policy may affect NP practice and how Transformational Leadership can help to influence policy changes.
1. Explanation of how healthcare policy can impact the advanced practice nurse profession
2. Explanation of why advocacy is considered an essential component of the advance practice nurse’s role
3. Discuss the four pillars of Transformational leadership and the effect it may have on influencing policy change
4. A scholarly resource must be used for EACH discussion question each week.
Sample Paper
Health Leadership Policy
The development of the advanced nursing practice has contributed to a quick response to the ever-changing patients’ needs. Over time, the APN-led primary has positively impacted patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and costs. Most importantly, advanced practice nursing contributes to increased access to healthcare by strengthening the existing healthcare workforce. Health care policies also impact both the patients and nurses in the healthcare settings. APNs play a direct role in implementing and assessing the health policies that affect home-care delivery, communities, care centers, hospital settings. Doing so requires foundational knowledge and strong skills in understanding population health, the delegation of duties, health financing, and more.
How Healthcare Policy Can Impact the Advanced Practice Nurse Profession
Healthcare policy impacts the advanced practice nurse profession in its decision-making, care practices, and management. According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), an APN is a registered nurse with the knowledge, clinical competencies, and decision-making skills for extended practice (Lopes-Junior, 2021). The healthcare policies influence their education, research, and care management. WHO/PAHO argues that APNs contribute to the management of care of patients with chronic disorders and mild diseases diagnosed according to the procedures, protocols, and guidelines of clinical practice. The healthcare policies play a crucial role in clarifying priorities and establishing roles and expectations of APNs. PAHO (2018) mentioned the contribution of APN in health promotion, reducing deaths, and preventing diseases in the most vulnerable communities. Therefore, healthcare policies impact the advanced practice nurse profession by helping in administering direct care and support for a vast number of patients. APN practitioners working in clinical settings, such as home healthcare, critical care, community-based programs, and hospice, are governed by the guidelines.
Advocacy as an Essential Component of the Advanced Practice Nurse’s Role
It is noteworthy that effective advocacy in advanced practice nursing helps in enriching the nursing profession and boosting the quality of patient care. The role of advanced practice nurses in supporting justice in healthcare, defending patients’ autonomy, and representing the interests of patients requires advocacy. (William, Phillips, & Koyama, 2018). It assists in reflecting their advocacy roles at both the macro- and micro- levels. In other words, advocacy is an essential component that promotes fairness, right social policies, and health equity surrounding the advanced practice nurse’s role in promoting care delivery. Nursing organizations should support the APNs in understanding advocacy that supports their practices.
Four Pillars of Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership helps in providing change and promoting nursing performances. Idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspiring drive/motivation, and personalized consideration are the four pillars of transformative leadership required in nursing. (Farnsworth et al., 2020). Idealized influence considers managers as the role models for the associates in making good decisions for the organization. Besides, inspirational motivation recognizes managers as motivators of the associates who contribute to achieving the organization’s vision. Similarly, intellectual simulation recognizes managers as individuals encouraging inspiration and creativity by challenging various views and beliefs of certain groups. Lastly, individual consideration requires managers to act as advisors and coaches to the associates in reaching goals that help the organization. These pillars describe the manager’s role in influencing their associates to follow a given direction and complete various objectives. The pillars can help influence policy change in the nursing organization when managers become encouragers, role models, coaches, and innovators in transforming their associates into more productive and successful individuals.
References
Farnsworth, D., Clark J.K., Hall, J., Johnson, S., Wysocki, A., Kepner, K., (2020) Transformational leadership: The transformation of managers and associates. HR020. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HR020
Lopes-Júnior, L. C. (2021). Advanced practice nursing and the expansion of the role of nurses in primary health care in the Americas. SAGE open nursing, 7, 23779608211019491. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23779608211019491
Pan American Health Organization. (2018). Expanding the roles of nurses in primary health care. [Internet].
Williams, S. D., Phillips, J. M., & Koyama, K. (2018). Nurse Advocacy: Adopting health in all policies approach. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(3). Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No3-Sept-2018/Policy-Advocacy.html&hl=en&sa=T&oi=gsb-ggp&ct=res&cd=0&d=11409394707602647536&ei=32ANYuHJCK3FsQLCtKWoBQ&scisig=AAGBfm2SZyvAq
