Role of Nurses in Policy Making to Improve Outcomes, prevent Illnesses and Reduce Hospital Readmissions.

Nurses spend significant time working directly with patients, so they are familiar with the specific needs of the people they serve. As a result, nurses can advocate for public policy changes that benefit the patients they care for. They develop policies where none exist, reform harmful or ineffective policies, and ensure those good policies are implemented and enforced (Turale & Kunaviktikul, 2019).

One of the most critical areas where nurses can influence policy is smoking cessation, where policies such as imposing heavy taxes on cigarettes or prohibiting smoking within specific areas may aid in smoking cessation. Because smoking is a risk factor for hypertension, smoking reduction or cessation is an evidence-based lifestyle modification to lower blood pressure (improve outcomes), prevent hypertension, or reduce readmission of already hypertensive patients.

Nursing Theory or Conceptual Framework that frames and guides Actions during my Practicum

Nursing theories provide the foundations for the knowledge and skills used in practice. Comfort is a valuable outcome of care during delivery; I would thus refer to Katharine Kolcaba’s theory of comfort. Kolcaba distinguished three types of comfort: relief, which involves relieving patients of, say, pain, ease, which addresses comfort in a state of contentment, and transcendence, which is a state of comfort in which patients can rise above their challenges. (Oliveira et al., 2020). Understanding that comfort can take the form of physical, psychospiritual, environmental, or sociocultural contexts; I will ensure that all strategies and care interventions delivered aim to provide comfort to the population group identified.

How State Board Nursing Practice Standards and/or Organizational or Governmental Policies affect the Population Problem Defined

Each state has its own set of nursing standards that resident nurses must follow. The standards frequently dictate independent practice and prescriptive authority. In Alabama, for example, a certified registered nurse (RN) is responsible for providing continuous and comprehensive care for a wide range of conditions for which the certified RN is educationally prepared, taking patients’ health histories and performing physical examinations, formulating working diagnoses, prescribing (albeit with limited prescriptive authority), administering and providing therapeutic measures, tests, and drugs, counseling patients, consulting and referring to other professionals (Alabama Board of Nursing, 2022).

The scope of practice established by the State Board of Nursing allows nurses to be fully responsible for the patients they care for, in this case, adult hypertensive patients. Specific organizational rules also govern how nurses care for patients. For example, certain organizations, such as the one with which I work, limit nurses’ prescriptive authority and only allow them to do so under the supervision of a physician. This can have negative consequences because one must wait for a physician to prescribe medications, which can cause the patient’s treatment to be delayed.

Leadership Strategies to Improve Outcomes, Patient-Centered Care, and Patient Experience related to the Population Problem Identified

Leadership is a critical tool in healthcare. It serves as the organization’s engine, providing fuel and direction as it journeys toward its objectives. Leaders are thus essential to the operation of an organization, and the strategies employed to determine whether or not the organization’s objectives are met.

Transformational leadership would be used in the care of adult hypertensive patients. Collins et al. (2020) define transformational leadership as an approach that causes a change in individuals and social systems. The practicum’s goal is to develop interventions or change strategies to improve the management of the defined population health problem, so transformational leadership is the best strategy.

In terms of collaboration, strategies that would ensure the team works effectively include (1) being aware of and respecting each other’s duties, (2) effective communication, (3) viewing patients as partners, and (4) recognizing the efforts of others. Preparing the organization for change, crafting a vision and plan for change, implementing the changes, embedding the changes within the organizational culture and practices, and finally, reviewing progress and analyzing the results (Barrow et al., 2021) are the change