Health Care Policy
Health Care Policy
Health Care Policy
Health Care Policy ON Opioid Addiction and Recurrent Hospital Admission
Healthcare is an integral sector that integrates social, political and economic aspects. Therefore, the government considers the interests of every sector before implementation of proposed policies. A policy has a significant influence on the achievement of sustainable development and decision-makers should focus on sustaining the public demands, where health care is non-exceptional. In this case, health policy is a major concern on how the use of opioids impacts on the population. Notably, the nursing profession aims at achieving improved society health, but these goals are unachievable if the legislation does not take its cause. Therefore, an effective health policy should integrate social, economic and political interests for the well being of the health systems. The study highlights the problematic situation in the policies concerning opioids dosage, identify the position of the politics and then provide a solution to the problem.
In this study, opioid addiction is a major concern to on how it influences performance in the health sector, especially considering the rate of hospital admission for the patients. For decades now, countries have continued to apply this policy in health organizations with New Zealand and Australia showing a significant adherence to the policy. Nursing care is a sensitive field that serves the largest population of the patients. Every operation in the health sector is governed by the law through formulation and implementation of health policies. In this case, health policies refer to the documented rules and guidelines that that reflects the decision of the policymaker subject to the strengthening of the health systems (Gilson & World Health Organization, 2012). The policies, therefore, take a political, economic and social perspective in controlling the health systems.
Advocacy for Health Policy
Politics have a crucial role pin influencing the direction of every industry. In this case, advocacy for health policies refers to the process of influencing prioritization of a particular program in the political arena. The process targets the major decision makers such that they make rational conclusions that will be a solution to a particular public problem (Donald et al., 2013). The advocacy results in achievement of the goals of the advanced health care, which is an improvement in the quality of life. As a result, families and community experience long-term health care benefits. The competence of nurses is directly proportional to the expected outcome in the health sector. Considering the roles assumed by nurses, it is important for the health ministries to establish platforms that improve the competence of the employees in a multidisciplinary approach. This notion implies that for nurses to show competence in the needs of advanced nurse care, they should have a wide scope understanding of social issues (Mohammed et al., 2016). This compilation would help the nurse to understand the need of the patients, thus integrating values and professionalism to respond to the patient needs. Social fancies are core in establishing farfetched advocacy for the appropriate policy formulation and treatment of the patients (Poorchangizi, Farokhzadian, Abbaszadeh, Mirzaee&Borhani, 2017). At this point, it is important to embrace the need for patient-based health care.
Identification of the Policy
The rationale of the study aims at providing the best solution to the existing problem. Therefore, it is important to use the policy-stream mode since it helps in problem identification, provision of suggestions and the improvement of the current situation. While the policy might be taken form a multidimensional approach, the study focuses on single model of problem identification to best fit the case. The policy provides attributes for improving public health, but misconception on the application of opioids results in a confusion that needs close assessment to determine the need for intervention and the best approaches to mitigate exacerbation of the existing problem. Therefore, the paper adopts a policy stream model where through the application of the problem stream. Indeed, the major causation of ineffective administration embeds on the challenges subjected to doctors in determining the right dosage.
Notably, the public does not have clear information on the application of opioid. Therefore, incidences of opioid misuse have been identified in different situations, which results in the frequent admission of people related to opioid misuse. Notably, after an individual has been provided with the prescriptions by the specialists, some do not fully understand the non-medicinal use and implications of opioid on one’s health. The risk that follows from the misconception of using opioids includes possibilities of addiction disorders. However, if the patients have the rationales of using the drug, they would enjoy a wide scope of health benefits including the effective treatment of pain.
The agenda of controlled drug abuse is a major concern across the globe. Particularly, various players in the health industry like the World Health Organization have increased interest in identifying the causations of increased unintentional deaths due to a drug overdose. The point of interest has been that since 2000 most of these deaths have been associated with the use of opioids. Statistically, there is approximately 137% increase in deaths associated with drug abuse in a span of eighteen years (Shaparin et al., 2017). Now, the situation creates a point of interest on the identification of the best approaches to intervene in the use of opioids for the well being of the public health. While the number of deaths builds an interest, interventions that have been established frequent admission is a major concern that needs close assessment. Those who end up in unintentional deaths have high possibilities of regular examination in the hospital by revisiting the health practitioners. However, failure to control the chronic condition results in death.
Doctors are consistently researching for new models that would lead to the invention of improved treatment methods for various disorders. Markedly, the use of opioids is necessary for treatment of over 200 million people in the world who undergoes surgery every year. Surgery is associated with severe pain that affects the well being of an individual even after the discharge from the hospital. The discharge process subjects the doctors into the challenges of catering for long-term health effect of the patient. Notably, if the prescription is inadequately done, then the patient would develop persistent postsurgical pain, which would impact negatively on the patient’s life thus demanding frequent hospitalization (Ling, Mooney &Hillhouse, 2011). Besides, if the doctor makes a long prescription of the opioids to the patient to reduce possibilities of inadequate treatment, the patient might be subjected to possibilities of addiction to the use of opioids. From the matter, it is vivid that nursing care for people using opioids is a dilemma that is challenging to the doctors in different dimensions. From incomplete treatment, the patient is subjected to prolonged prescription of opioids by the specialists. From a close assessment of the cases on the use of opioids, it is vivid that it has a risk factor after the discharge of the patients. Particularly, 3.1% of the total population in the world continues to use opioids after the surgery (Clarke, Soneji, Ko, Yun &Wijeysundera, 2014). Further study indicates that the risk factor is predetermined by the surgical method used in treating the patient, the possibility of using a particular drug and younger age. Individuals develop postsurgical pains due to compression that might have occurred during surgery. Competence in health care is crucial in reducing limitation to the successful treatment of using opioids, especially in understanding the health condition of the patient before administering the treatment.
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Student Identified Solution
From the studies conducted on surgery, the use of the opioids is inevitable since surgical procedures remain a common practice in various health scenarios. As a result, it is important to consider that mitigating the occurrence of risks is the best solution to adopt surgical procedures that reduce the risks to the vulnerable groups. These groups include the young age, specific comorbidities and patients with heart failure (Clarke et al., 2014). The individuals in these conditions are subjective to higher risks of post-discharge disorders compared to the healthy people. However, the study does not provide for the exclusion of using opioids, but provides alternatives for patient-centered health care in order to provide the best results.
Implementation of the Changes
Patients have rights to best medication services while the nurses are obliged to observe ethics and professionalism. This approach ensures that the health practitioner considers the interests of the patient before treatment (Shaparin et al., 2017). Also, the method is broad-scoped in that it enhances the nurses to be compassionate, apply ethics and have a wider perspective of the social interests for their patients. The situation needs the inclusion of more health care practices rather than just following the policy. In this case, the nursing option that would enhance the effectiveness of opioids would be the best approach rather than the elimination of the entire process.The entire suggestion on improving the policy advocates for focusing on using patient-centered nursing by first identifying the health condition of an individual to identify the best approach for treatment. The result of adherence to these provisions would be reduced frequency of admission to hospitals due to post-surgical pains and to some extent unintentional deaths.
Positive Results
At first, the venerable groups should be the first persons of interest before the treatment is applied. As a result, it will be possible to reduce the negative impacts of opioids on the population. Advocacy for the policy would enhance the use of appropriate management practices on surgical methods with an objective of reducing the rate of hospitalization. Concerning the frequency of hospitalization, opioid management should focus on reducing possibilities of the patient developing complications.
Challenges
Implementation of the best opioids dosage is the greatest dilemma for the health practitioners. Therefore, using a long time dose should be followed with close monitoring of the patient’s progress. Most importantly, it would be rational to ensure that the patient has a clear understanding of the impacts of overdoses and the possibilities of side effects on withdrawal. These changes would be effective if there is adequate information on the appropriate procedures of administration, both for the doctors and the patients. The specialists will have to spend time in in-depth analysis of the patient’s health condition. As a result, the specialist will be able to identify the predisposing factors to repeated dosage to the treatments. Further measures would include the use of standardized tools to identify the cause of pain and then substitute some instances with the use of physical measures like heat, massage and bracing (Schaller, Larsson, Lindblad&Liedberg, 2015). Furthermore, the health practitioner should be cautious not to involve the use of drugs that were previously problematic to the patient should be avoided. The need for health examination would be improved by enhancing the competence of the nurses. This approach would include regular training and monitoring the performance of opioid inpatient and discharged patients and providing the data to the nurses. Also, community-based education on opioids would significantly help the nurses to identify the health condition of the patient before recommending the treatment method.
Presentation of the Report
The report needs to be addressed by an influential person who would make significant changes in the health departments in the political and social levels. In this case, Rick Scott, a governor in Florida is the best representative of the interests on opioid application to reduce addiction in the population and frequent admission. The reason for selecting the governor is that he has the capacity to make changes in the current laws, which would improve the performance of the nurses, especially on being cautious on drug administration.
The use of opioids helps in improving the wellbeing of the society, but the challenge remains in the determination of the best dosage. Nurses and other health practitioners are in a great dilemma on the best medication to prescriptions and the use of the drug has remained problematic, especially considering the vulnerable groups like people experiencing a heart attack and the depressed people. These are the individuals who are prone to addiction and frequent hospitalization due to incidences of overdose. However, the problem can be mitigated by not making the policy inapplicable, but using options like physical measures that would improve the health and substitute endorsement of opioids. Implementation of alternatives demands close monitoring of the patient’s progress, embracement of patient-centered healthcare and improved access to information. These motives help in mitigating challenges that speciali0sts encounter including complicated tests and limited access to patient’s information. As a result, the frequency of hospitalization and unintentional deaths would reduce significantly.
Health Care Policy
1. An actual policymaker visit/presentation is required but the student can accomplish this on the phone as opposed to an in-person meeting.
2. Describe your call/visit, include your presentation, and discuss your presentation as it occurred.
3. What was the response of the policymaker(s) to your call/visit? What suggestions and feedback did you receive? How would you define success?
4. What’s the next step in this process? What would be your follow-up plan? Do you need to take further immediate action? What about a formal ‘thank-you’? What ideas for continued and future advocacy do you have? Please review the example provided in the Planning Your Visit Ungraded Worksheet 2.
5. What might you do differently? Why? How? What worked or did not work in your strategy or message? Please support this with evidence.
6. What new insights do you have about your policy issue? Relate this to your initial policy analysis as discussed in Your Policy Priority Paper. Describe with specifics, including references.
7. What new insights do you have about the political and policymaking processes as a result of this experience? Please include references.
8. Is there a possibility of future opportunities as a result of this planned visit/presentation? If so, describe. How was this experience important to nursing?
NR506 Policymaker Visit Worksheet 3 (ungraded) Revised 6/24/15 | 1 |