NRS-440VN Advocacy Through Legislation
Nurses often become motivated to change aspects within the larger health care system based on their real-world experience. As such, many nurses take on an advocacy role to influence a change in regulations, policies, and laws that govern the larger health care system.
For this assignment, identify a problem or concern in your state, community, or organization that has the capacity for advocacy through legislation. Research the issue and use the "Advocacy Through Legislation" template to complete this assignment.
You are required to cite a minimum of three sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years, appropriate for the assignment criteria, and relevant to nursing practice.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
Please refer to the attached form and prepare the assignment accordingly.
Sample Paper
Problem
Workplace violence in healthcare is one of the major issues experienced in the community. This consists of healthcare professionals’ physical and psychologically damaging actions in their diverse workplaces. They include physical violence, discrimination, harassment, threatening behavior, and intimidation from other healthcare professionals, patients, and families. This problem affects nurses more compared to other employees. Nearly every experienced nurse has experienced a particular form of violence while providing care. However, several cases of workplace violence against nurses go unreported due to the lack of an efficient reporting system. But according to the 2016 data, about 12.7 per 10000 full-time registered nurses (RNs) experienced various forms of violence at their workplaces. This was three times higher than for all occupations (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). Nurses working in the emergency room, intensive care unit and psychiatry units are affected most. This is because healthcare units provide care to patients with psychiatric disorders, emotional manifestations caused by emerging health issues, and severe pain, which may contribute to their violent behaviors, even making them verbally or physically violent. Besides, workplace violence contributes to injuries among nurses. In 2018, about 12.2 percent of the injuries experienced by nurses were due to violence against healthcare workers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). In addition, workplace violence undermines the ability of nurses to deliver patient care effectively, hence leading to adverse patient outcomes. For instance, injured nurses may resign from the job positions leading to a shortage of nurses. This makes patients experience limited access to high-quality care.
Idea for Addressing Solution
Workplace violence against nurses is a significant issue affecting nurses, patients, and even healthcare organizations. Therefore, there is a need to address this issue. One of the ideas for addressing this issue is to create a safe working environment for nurses. This will allow the healthcare professionals to work without the fear of encountering preventable violent incidents at their workplaces, either from their colleagues or patients/families. Evidence shows that nurses are more likely to experience various violent incidents at their workplaces than workers in any sector (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). Secondly, it is necessary to address this issue to enhance the productivity of nurses in healthcare. Several nurses leave their jobs and switch to other occupations due to workplace violence. This contributes to the problem of nursing shortage in healthcare, as the available nurses are unable to meet the increasing demands from their patients and the communities they serve. Thirdly, healthcare facilities are incurring various indirect expenses associated with the issue. For instance, hospitals are forced to spend more resources to provide medical care to injured nurses. Besides, healthcare facilities incur more costs in recruiting and training new nurses to fill in the gap left with injured nurses.
This issue can be addressed through legislation. There is a need to establish a policy that will require healthcare organizations to develop an efficient reporting system that will allow nurses to report various violent incidents they may incur at their workplaces. Secondly, the policy will require healthcare institutions to create training programs to educate nurses on violent incidents they need to report. This is because several nurses consider workplace violence, especially from their patients, as part of their duty.
Research the Issue
Byon et al. (2021) investigated the prevalence of workplace violence among nurses and how efficiently nurses reported violent incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed that many nurses who cared for patients with COVID-19 experienced physical violence and verbal abuse. However, a large number of them experienced difficulties in reporting the violent incident to the management.
Song et al. (2021) investigated the diverse factors that inhibit nurses from reporting various incidents of violence they experience at their workplaces while executing their duties. One of the factors is that many nurses lack knowledge regarding the nature of the issues and the significance of reporting them to the authorities. Also, some feel physical violence and abuse is part of their duties as a nurse.
Stakeholder Support
Nurses
Nurses are affected most by this issue compared to employees in other industries. Thus, they will support the idea to address the problem to ensure efficient reporting of violence incidents at their workplaces and enhance their safety in their working environment.
Hospital managers
The management team will support the idea to address the issue to minimize healthcare costs associated with workplace violence against nurses. This will enable them to enable the overall productivity of the healthcare organization.
Stakeholder Opposition
Patients
Effective reporting of violent incidents affecting nurses will allow the healthcare professionals to find justice for damages incurred. As a result, some patients will be penalized if found guilty and liable for the damages.
Family
The patient’s family members may oppose the idea since they may feel their patients are not supposed to be held liable for any violent incident because of their health status.
Financial Incentives/Costs
Workplace violence against nurses is associated with various financial costs. For instance, healthcare facilities incur more expenses to recruit and train new nurses to fill in the gaps of those who left their positions due to workplace violence. Besides, healthcare organizations spend more resources providing care to injured nurses, which lead to more hospital expenses (Brophy et al., 2018). Lastly, also this issue leads to negative financial impact in hospitals associated with lost productivity among injured nurses. Workplace violence leads to physical and psychological injuries among nurses, contributing to a decline in their productivity (Brophy et al., 2018).
The legislation will ensure the implementation of effective reporting systems in healthcare organizations. This will help minimize the violent incidents against nurses hence controlling hospital financial expenditures associated with the issue.
Legislature: Information Needed and Process for Proposal
Charlie Christ. He is a U.S. representative from Florida’s 13th congressional district since 2017.
First, I will write a letter to the legislator to express my idea. Secondly, I will book an appointment to discuss the issue with the legislator and persuade him to support the legislation. The legislator will draft a bill concerning the proposed idea and then introduce it to congress. The bill will go to the committee to review the bill. After approving it, the legislators will vote at the full chamber. If passed, it will proceed to the U.S. president to sign it into law.
Christian Principles and Nursing Advocacy
Various Christian principles support legislative advocacy. One of them includes justice. This principle requires one to express fairness in his/her decisions and actions (Ficek, 2021). This principle supports advocacy for various elements in healthcare, including inclusiveness and positive health outcomes for all populations, without considering their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation. For instance, legislators can embrace justice when allocating healthcare resources to the community. Therefore, fair allocation of the resources to individuals will help ensure all populations, including the minority groups, get equal opportunity to the resources. This promotes inclusiveness and positive health outcomes among all populations. The second principle is love. This principle guides people to treat others as they would like to be treated (Ficek, 2021). This principle will help promote inclusiveness and positive outcomes for all populations. Healthcare professionals can embrace this Christian principle by handling all patients with love without discriminating against their race, language, color, or disease. This will help ensure each individual has equal access to care and create an environment where all patients feel valued. The other Christian principle includes compassion. It requires Christians to understand other people’s feelings or suffering and help them achieve their needs (Ficek, 2021). This principle can also advocate for inclusiveness and positive health outcomes for all populations. Various stakeholders in healthcare, including healthcare professionals and legislators, can embrace this principle in their advocacy actions. For instance, healthcare professionals can identify different challenges facing patients and champion various measures or policies that can be implemented to address them without considering their cultural background, color, gender, or origin.
References
Brophy, J. T., Keith, M. M., & Hurley, M. (2018). Assaulted and unheard: violence against healthcare staff. New solutions: a journal of environmental and occupational health policy, 27(4), 581-606. https://ochu.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2017-11-27-Assaulted-and-Unheard-Violence-Against-Healthcare-Staff-New-Solutions-Article.pdf
Byon, H. D., Sagherian, K., Kim, Y., Lipscomb, J., Crandall, M., & Steege, L. (2021). Nurses’ experience with type II workplace violence and underreporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workplace health & safety, 21650799211031233. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/21650799211031233
Ficek, R. (2021). Love, Mercy and Social Justice in the Context of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński’s Personalist Concept of Social Life. Collectanea Theologica, 91, 101-132. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ryszard-Ficek/publication/350518738_Love_Mercy_and_Social_Justice_in_the_Context_of_Cardinal_Stefan_Wyszynski’s_Personalist_Concept_of_Social_Life/links/6186bdfad7d1af224bbd67e1/Love-Mercy-and-Social-Justice-in-the-Context-of-Cardinal-Stefan-Wyszynskis-Personalist-Concept-of-Social-Life.pdf
Song, C., Wang, G., & Wu, H. (2021). Frequency and barriers of reporting workplace violence in nurses: An online survey in China. International journal of nursing sciences, 8(1), 65-70. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235201322030171X
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). (2018). Occupational injuries and illnesses among registered nurses. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/occupational-injuries-and-illnesses-among-registered-nurses.htm
