Strategies for Communicating and Collaborating with the Black American Community to Improve Heart Disease Outcomes

My group of focus with regard to heart disease is the Black American population. Communicating and collaborating with the local community is essential to successfully implementing the proposed intervention. First, gathering input from the population group is important as it ensures the nurses remain accountable to the local community. I will collect data and input from the target group to help me meet the intervention’s information needs, understand the health needs of the community, their preferred channels of communication, health beliefs, health views, existing community-level risk factors for heart disease, and their experiences with heart disease, the available resources within the community, and the existing difficulties to access care and other resources necessary for managing and preventing heart disease among the Black American community. Community input will also help me gather first-hand input to support decision-making for improving the intervention, care, and community outcomes related to heart disease. I have selected strategies to facilitate communication and collaboration with Blacks in the U.S. by creating an environment that supports open communication with opportunities for giving and receiving feedback. The intervention will also employ technology to improve communication and facilitate multiple lines of communication. Evidence from the use of technology in managing the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be useful in communication and contact tracing (Alo et al., 2021). Additionally, technology, when used as an alternative channel for communication, has been found to improve the efficiency of communication and overcome complex communication needs during emergencies (Light et al., 2019).

Role of State Board Nursing Practice Standards and Governmental Policies in Guiding the Development of Proposed Intervention

The State Board of Nursing Practice and governmental standards guided the development of the intervention. I considered three policies during the development of the intervention for heart disease among the Black American population: the Nursing Practice Act (NPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy act, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I will use the NPA to ensure that I assign the nurses roles that are in line with their level of education and competence to avoid errors or role conflicts. I will also use the HIPAA to ensure that I maintain the privacy and confidence of patients during and after implementing the intervention and ensure that all activities and actions comply with the HIPAA’s Privacy rule on the use of technology and handling of health information. I will also use the ACA to ensure that the intervention is not costly, adequately meets the community’s needs, and improves access to cardiac care services. The evidence shows that the ACA has significantly improved access to care for CVD adult patients across the general patient despite the existing gaps in care for patients from minority backgrounds with CVD and faced with multiple cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs)  (Barghi et al., 2019).

Impact of Proposed Intervention on the Quality of Care, Patient Safety, and Costs to the System and Individual

I expect the proposed intervention to positively impact and improve the cost of care, patient safety, and the costs to the system and the individual. I will focus on ensuring that the lifestyle change intervention reduces the risk of heart disease among the Black American population and improves access to quality and safe care, ultimately reducing cases and related expenditures. Evidence from research shows positive links between lifestyle modifications and risk reduction with an impact on patient safety and care costs. For instance, lifestyle modifications have notable risk reduction and maximized patient outcomes (Franklin et al., 2020), including positive outcomes in patients with resistant hypertension (Blumenthal et al., 2021). The American Diabetes Association (2019) notes that CVD and CVD risk management reduces the burden of treatment and care, and the management costs have been educated about added treatment burden, side effects, and costs, as discussed below. The benchmark data for the intervention will be drawn from existing administrative data, total insurance, Medicare and Medicaid claims, patient medical records, patient assessments, total expenditure on heart disease on a monthly basis, heart disease survey data, and electronic clinical data.