Nurses and Healthcare Policy: How Change is Made
Healthcare is an evolving system that adapts to new patient needs and demands. These changes come about in the form of healthcare policy, which directly impacts how healthcare organizations operate. Nurses are uniquely positioned to impact healthcare policies and advocate for their patients and themselves. Let’s take a look at healthcare policy and how nurses can make a difference.
What is healthcare policy?
Healthcare policy is broadly described as policy that impacts the health of a population. It can affect the healthcare system and is designed to lead to some kind of change or mandate the adoption of new rules or regulations. More specifically, it focuses on caring for infirmity, disability and disease. It also includes regulations related to the organization of healthcare professionals and pharmaceuticals. Perhaps most notably, healthcare policy impacts the financing of the healthcare system itself, in addition to determining who has access to various healthcare facilities.
Some people believe healthcare policy has become too politicized. This matters because its associated policy determinations are a huge and dominant driver of healthcare on a number of different levels. First, healthcare policy directly impacts the practical care that healthcare professionals can provide. Second, healthcare policy impacts the types of studies that are funded. This affects both the number of studies conducted on certain topics and the theoretical developments the research sets forth.
Overall, healthcare policy refers to the regulations by which the entirety of the healthcare system in the United States is run. It has a huge impact on the care patients receive and the environment in which nurses work, so it deserves careful attention.
How is healthcare policy made?
To bring about change in the industry via health policy, you must first understand how these policies are made. The process differs slightly between the local and the federal level, so let’s take a look at the three main elements of the U.S. healthcare system to explore these differences. The three healthcare system elements we’ll explore are:
- Frontline microsystems
- Mesosystems
- Macrosystems
Each of these three systems works independently but concurrently, providing healthcare regulations across the country that are coordinated and overseen by the federal government.
Microsystems
Microsystems are small segments of the healthcare system, such as local clinics and hospitals. These facilities impact healthcare policy for their own use. Although this kind of healthcare policy is used only in the hospital or clinic in question, it still impacts patients and professionals directly. Nurses who are interested in changing a policy at their workplace should be prepared to engage with the people in their organization who make those decisions.
Mesosystems
Mesosystems are slightly larger than microsystems. The term refers to healthcare policies that are used at the state and regional levels. These policies also affect microsystems as they are not exclusive policies made by each individual hospital. Microsystems cannot develop internal policy that conflicts with mesosystem policy as the latter supersedes the former.
Nurses who are interested in changing state-specific policies must be prepared to interact on a more political level than they would for microsystem policy changes. This might include attending local or state government sessions, protesting harmful policies, and even working with the local media to bring awareness to the negative impact certain policies are having on patients and healthcare professionals.
Macrosystems
Macrosystem policy refers to policy that is made and enforced at the federal level. This is the most influential type of policy because it overrules both mesosystem policy and microsystem policy, dictating the way state and facility-specific policies can be implemented and enforced. If a federal policy says that new mothers must remain in the hospital with their newborn for five days, for example, states and individual facilities cannot dictate that they remain in the hospital for 10 days or four days. These smaller systems are bound by federal policies.
Nurses who are interested in impacting federal policies must be prepared to complete professional and educational objectives in order to wield as much authority and influence as possible.
Changing the system from an actionable role
Not all healthcare positions are considered equal. Professionals with the highest education possible often find their opinions are given more weight than those with only an undergraduate degree. That doesn’t mean that your opinion doesn’t matter if you don’t have an advanced degree, but it does mean that your ability to influence policy might be slightly impeded once you reach state and federal-level policies.
Nurses might consider enrolling in post-master’s DNP programs online to ensure that their opinions are as effective as possible in influencing policy change and attracting the attention of policymakers. It is important to remember that in this specific area, your educational institution matters just as much as the degree you complete. Make sure you enroll in a course from a reputable and respected university such as Marymount University. This will help ensure that your hard work pays off and your opinions receive the most attention possible.
Nevertheless, it is possible for nurses who do not have a DNP to influence federal-level policies. If you have an exceptional amount of experience in the industry that is relevant to the policies you’d like to change or you have made innovative progress in that area, you might be able to command just as much respect as individuals with more advanced degrees.
What role do nurses play in healthcare policy?
It is important for healthcare policy to take the needs of patients and healthcare professionals into consideration. Unfortunately, sometimes these decisions are made with little input from the medical community. It is critically important that professionals make their voices heard even when their opinions are not solicited. There are a number of things nurses can do to influence healthcare policy and advocate for their patients. Let’s look at the role nurses play in healthcare policy and some of the steps they can take to impact it.
Patient advocates
Perhaps the most important role nurses play in forming policies is that of a patient advocate. As the people who interact with patients on a daily basis, nurses are uniquely positioned to recognize how policies impact them. If a policy has an adverse effect and negatively changes either the care patients receive or their access to important services, nurses are the first professionals to recognize it. They also typically understand the policies that would positively impact their patients, making them the ideal people to lobby for change.
Population health champions
Another role that nurses play in healthcare policy formation and change is that of the public health champion. In this role, nurses strive to impact not just their individual patients, but also the wider community as a whole. Their goal is to serve as community nurses addressing the needs of individuals, families, groups and broader populations in many different communities. In this role, nurses advocate for services, resources, education and basic provisions for the community in question.
Staff health warriors
Although the health of their patients is often the top priority of nurses, they must also keep themselves and their fellow nurses in mind. If they see policies negatively impacting their work environment in some way, they are well-positioned to stand up and make some noise about it. Safe staffing and work strategy policy, for example, has a direct impact on the way nurses work and the care they can provide to their patients.
What steps can nurses take to impact healthcare policy?
On a more practical level, there are a number of things nurses can do to influence healthcare policy and bring about change in the industry. From encouraging fellow nurses to advocate for their patients to researching who makes the decisions about specific healthcare policies, here are some of the most important actions nurses can take to effect change in healthcare.
Learn how policy is made
Before you can effectively lobby for changes to healthcare policy, you must understand how the policies are created and implemented. You should always conduct some independent research to better understand the specifics of the process. If you are attempting to impact policy at your workplace, for example, you might want to look into when and where policies are created. Some organizations have set schedules when they gather decision-makers together and look at current and prospective policies. Sometimes employees are allowed to attend these meetings, and the best way to make your voice heard is often to reach out to decision-makers directly.
Know who makes the policy in question
It is essential to know not only how policy is created, but also who creates it. This is important at all levels of policy creation, from microsystems to macrosystems. This might take a bit of digging for microsystem-level policy, but you should be able to determine the people in charge of dictating and implementing healthcare policies. Once you know who makes the policy, you must reach out and lobby for the policy to be changed.
Write to policymakers
Who better to advocate for policy changes than the people who see firsthand their impacts on patients, communities and professional settings? Once you know who is behind policy decisions, reach out to them and request a change. It is very important to remain respectful in these communications and write as clearly and concisely as possible. Few people are receptive to insults and aggression, and it’s possible that the policymaker’s aides (if they are a legislator) won’t even forward such emails to the official in question. You also don’t want to go on for too long. Emails that are too wordy might not be passed on to the person in question.
Note that all of this applies to macro-, meso-, and microsystem policy creators. The last thing you want to do is offend the people you want to interact with. It is understandable to be upset about a harmful policy, but you have to communicate those concerns with your emotions as a secondary factor. Your first priority should be effectively communicating the objective harmful impact of the policy in question.
Keep your coworkers involved
Not everyone keeps up with the latest in policy creation. This is not to say that some nurses don’t care, but rather that they have too much going on to dedicate time to researching upcoming policy changes. If you are someone who makes it a point to follow these developments, keep your coworkers involved! Tell them all about the upcoming changes and get their input. If they also feel the policy must be changed, you can give them the information they need to reach out to policymakers. The more voices you can involve in the issue, the more attention you will command.
Start reaching out to decision-makers
Are you interested in learning more about how nurses can impact policy change and transform the industry from the inside out? Look into who makes the decisions in your area and how you can potentially be involved as a nurse. Be sure to interact with fellow students, professionals and coworkers about pressing issues.
