Develop a 2–4-page proposal for a policy that should help to improve health care and outcomes for your target population.

Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.

Cost and access to care continue to be main concerns for patients and providers. As technology improves our ability to care for and improve outcomes in patients with chronic and complex illnesses, questions of cost and access become increasingly important. As a master’s-prepared nurse, you must be able to develop policies that will ensure the delivery of care that is effective and can be provided in an ethical and equitable manner.

SHOW LESS

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care for achieving high-quality population outcomes.
  • Propose a policy and guidelines that will lead to improved outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interprofessional interventions in achieving desired population health outcomes.
  • Analyze the potential for an interprofessional approach to implementing a proposed policy to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the care setting to achieve high quality outcomes.
• Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy advocacy.
  • Advocate the need for a proposed policy in the context of current outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
  • Communicate proposal in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
  • Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

CONTEXT:

 As a master’s-prepared nurse, you have a valuable viewpoint and voice with which to advocate for policy developments. As a nurse leader and health care practitioner, often on the front lines of helping individuals and populations, you are able to articulate and advocate for the patient more than any other professional group in health care. This is especially true of populations that may be underserved, underrepresented, or are otherwise lacking a voice. By advocating for and developing policies, you are able to help drive improvements in outcomes for specific populations. The policies you advocate for could be internal ones (just within a specific department or health care setting) that ensure quality care and compliance. Or they could be external policies (local, state, or federal) that may have more wide-ranging effects on best practices and regulations. 

Questions to Consider:

As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.

SHOW LESS

Assessment 2 will build on the health issue, vulnerable population, and position that you started to develop in the first assessment. For Assessment 2, you will develop a proposal for a policy and a set of guidelines that could be implemented to ensure improvements in care and outcomes.

• What are the relevant best practices from a population health standpoint (cultural competence, disease prevention, and interventions) for your chosen health issue and vulnerable population?
  • How are these best practices relevant to your chosen health issue and vulnerable population?
    • Do the best practices make any reference to standards of care or benchmarks that should be achieved?
  • How could these best practices be leveraged to help inform or develop a policy and guidelines to improve care and outcomes for the vulnerable population you are working with?
• How could technology be used to identify health concerns or collect data that could help health care practitioners determine which health care issues to focus on in a population?
  • What are the relevant laws, regulations, or policies for employing any of the technology you might find useful?
• What type of policy and guidelines would be most likely to ensure improvements in care and outcomes related to your chosen health issue and vulnerable population?
  • Are there any policies in existence that could help inform your own policy development?
  • How might your proposed policy and guidelines influence the way in which care is accessed?
  • How might your proposed policy and guidelines influence the amount of access that is available?

Scenario

The analysis of position papers that your interprofessional team presented to the committee has convinced them that it would be worth the time and effort to develop a new policy to address your specific issue in the target population. To that end, your interprofessional team has been asked to submit a policy proposal that outlines a specific approach to improving the outcomes for your target population. This proposal should be supported by evidence and best practices that illustrate why the specific approaches are likely to be successful. Additionally, you have been asked to address the ways in which applying your policy to interprofessional teams could lead to efficiency or effectiveness gains.

Instructions

For this assessment you will develop a policy proposal that seeks to improve the outcomes for the health care issue and target population you addressed in Assessment 1. If for some reason you wish to change your specific issue and/or target population, contact your FlexPath faculty.

The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

• Propose a policy and guidelines that will lead to improved outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Advocate the need for a proposed policy in the context of current outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Analyze the potential for an interprofessional approach to implementing a proposed policy to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the care setting to achieve high-quality outcomes.
• Communicate proposal in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
• Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Example Assessment: You may use the assessment example, linked in the Assessment Example section of the Resources, to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

Additional Requirements

• Length of proposal: 2–4 double-spaced, typed pages, not including title page or reference list. Your proposal should be succinct yet substantive.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that supports the relevance of or need for your policy, as well as interprofessional considerations. Resources should be no more than five years old.
• APA formatting: Use the APA Style Paper Template linked in the Resources. An APA Style Paper Tutorial is also provided to help you in writing and formatting your analysis.

Grading Rubric:

1-  Propose a policy and guidelines that will lead to improved outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Proposes a policy and guidelines that will lead to improved outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population. Acknowledges potential difficulties and discusses how those challenges will be met. 

2-  Advocate the need for a proposed policy in the context of current outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Advocates the need for a proposed policy in the context of current outcomes and quality of care for a specific issue in a target population. Impartially considers contrary data and opposing viewpoints. 

3-  Analyze the potential for an interprofessional approach to implementing a proposed policy to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the care setting to achieve high-quality outcomes. 

Passing Grade:  Analyzes the potential for an interprofessional approach to implementing a proposed policy to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the care setting to achieve high-quality outcomes. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the analysis). 

4-  Communicate proposal in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. 

Passing Grade:  Communicates proposal in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Identifies specific strategies or approaches used to ensure clear communication. 

5-  Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style 

Passing Grade:  Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style. Citations are free from all errors.