Overview

Develop a 4–6-page position about a specific health care issue as it relates to a target vulnerable population. Include an analysis of existing evidence and position papers to help support your position. Your analysis should also present and respond to one or more opposing viewpoints.

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.

Position papers are a method to evaluate the most current evidence and policies related to health care issues. They offer a way for researchers to explore the views of any number of organizations around a topic. This can help you to develop your own position and approach to care around a topic or issue.

This assessment will focus on analyzing position papers about an issue related to addiction, chronicity, emotional and mental health, genetics and genomics, or immunity. Many of these topics are quickly evolving as technology advances, or as we attempt to push past stigmas. For example, technology advances and DNA sequencing provide comprehensive information to allow treatment to become more targeted and effective for the individual. However as a result, nurses must be able to understand and teach patients about the impact of this information. With this great power comes concerns that patient conditions are protected in an ethical and compassionate manner.

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.
  • Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that could support a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population.
  • Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that are contrary to a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes 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.
  • Explain the role of the interprofessional team in facilitating improvements for a specific issue in a target population.
• Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy advocacy.
  • Explain a position with regard to health outcomes 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 an initial viewpoint regarding a specific issue in a target population and a synthesis of existing positions in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
  • Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Position papers are a way for individuals, groups, and organizations to express their views and intentions toward a specific issue. In health care, many position papers address specific policies, regulations, or other approaches to care. As a master’s-prepared nurse, you should feel empowered to express and advocate for your own views on policy and care matters. This is especially important when it comes to populations you or your organization cares for that are not receiving the quality, type, or amount of care that they require.

An important skill in creating a position paper or policy proposal is the ability to analyze and synthesize others’ views about the population or issue of interest to you. By synthesizing the positive and negative views of an issue, you can become better equipped to strengthen your own arguments and to respond to opposing views in an informed and convincing way.

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 1 will be based on an analysis of position papers that are relevant to a health care issue related to a vulnerable population. Think about your experience working with vulnerable populations, and the issues related to health care you have observed for those populations, or reflect on the two Vila Health simulations in the Resources.

• What is the vulnerable population that most interests you?
  • What is the health issue that is most prevalent or severe in the population?
  • How does the health issue impact the daily lives of members of the population?
  • How does the care environment in your chosen context impact both the population and the level of care related to the health issue?
  • What are the biggest challenges that you would need to overcome to improve the outcomes for the population related to the health issue?
• What is your position on how to best work to improve the care and outcomes that the population is receiving?
  • What previously published position papers support your position, or the need to work to improve care and outcomes in general for the population?
    • How do these position papers support your assertions?
    • How could one or more of the position papers help you to form a treatment plan?
  • What previously published position papers contradict your position?
    • What, if any, of these differences would make your position stronger if you incorporated them?
    • How could you respond to any irreconcilable differences in such a way as to encourage buy-in for your position from those opposed?

Assessment Instructions

Scenario

Pretend you are a member of an interprofessional team that is attempting to improve the quality of health care and the outcomes in a vulnerable population. For the first step in your team’s work, you have decided to conduct an analysis of current position papers that address the issue and population you are considering.

In your analysis you will note the team’s initial views on the issue in the population as well as the views across a variety of relevant position papers. You have been tasked with finding the most current standard of care or evidenced-based practice and evaluating both the pros and cons of the issue. For the opposing viewpoints, it is important to discuss how the team could respond to encourage support. This paper will be presented to a committee of relevant stakeholders from your care setting and the community. If it receives enough support, you will be asked to create a new policy that could be enacted to improve the outcomes related to your chosen issue and target population.

The care setting, population, and health care issue that you use for this assessment will be used in the other assessments in this course. Consider your choice carefully. There are two main approaches for you to take in selecting the scenario for this assessment:

1. You may use one of the issues and populations presented in the Vila Health: Health Challenges in Different Populations and Vila Health: Resources for Topical Research media pieces. For this approach, you may consider the population in the context of the Vila Health care setting, or translate it into the context in which you currently practice or have had recent experience.
2. You may select a population and issue that is of interest to you and set them in the context of your current or desired future care setting. While you are free to choose any population of interest, the issue you choose should fall within one of the following broad categories:
   • Genetics and genomics.
     • Sickle cell, asthma, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis.
   • Immunity.
     • Type 1 diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), congenital neutropenia syndrome.
   • Chronicity.
     • Arthritis, any type of cancer or lung or heart disease, obesity.
   • Addiction.
     • Abuse of alcohol, prescription drugs, tobacco, illegal substances.
   • Emotion and mental health.
     • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, eating disorders, psychosis.

Note: If you choose the second option, contact the FlexPath faculty for your section to make sure that your chosen issue and population will fit within the topic areas for this course.

Instructions

For this assessment you will develop a position summary and an analysis of relevant position papers on a health care issue in a chosen population. 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 Analysis of Position Papers for Vulnerable Populations Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Analysis of Position Papers for Vulnerable Populations to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

• Explain a position with regard to health outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
• Explain the role of the interprofessional team in facilitating improvements for a specific issue in a target population.
• Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that could support a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that are contrary to a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Communicate an initial viewpoint regarding a specific issue in a target population and a synthesis of existing positions in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly 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 submission: 4–6 double-spaced, typed pages, not including the title and reference pages. Your plan should be succinct yet substantive. No abstract is required.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your initial position on the issue, as well as a minimum of 2–3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that express contrary views or opinions. 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- Explain a position with regard to health outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Explains a position with regard to health outcomes for a specific issue in a target population, and identifies assumptions on which the plan is based. 

2-  Explain the role of the interprofessional team in facilitating improvements for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Explains the role of the interprofessional team in facilitating improvements for a specific issue in a target population. Acknowledges challenges that the team may face in working together or in facilitating improvements. 

3-  Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that could support a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Evaluates the evidence and positions of others that could support a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation). 

4-  Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that are contrary to a team’s approach for improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population. 

Passing Grade:  Evaluates the evidence and positions of others that are contrary to a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population. Impartially responds to conflicting data and other perspectives in a way that creates buy-in. 

5-  Communicate an initial viewpoint regarding a specific issue in a target population and a synthesis of existing positions in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. 

Passing Grade:  Communicates an initial viewpoint regarding a specific issue in a target population and synthesis of existing positions in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Identifies specific strategies or approaches used to ensure clear communication.
 

6-  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.