Dorothy’s post response
Nurses can have a great impact in influencing health policies. It is indeed true that the nurses’ value has been undermined greatly in the past. As such, nurses need to become more politically aware of their importance in research and development of polices that affect the people. It is indeed true that most of the policies have been developed from research and nurses have played a big part in closing the gap between research and policy. Nurses play an advocacy role for the patient since they spend most of the time with patients compared to the time the doctors.
The nurses understand the need of the patient (Leavitt, 2003). As such, a push for a spiritual approach for the elderly may be the right step towards the improvement of health services to the elderly. All what the nurses need is a platform, which they can use to press their issues in the legislative process and apply their experience in the real work situations to provide a way forward for the development of policies that will help the patients.
Chris’s Post Response
The barriers of to healthcare may have been contributed by the major differences between the public and private sectors. In private sectors health services are normally, expensive hence may be limited to those individuals that can afford such costs.
Additionally, considering other aspects that do not necessary involve medical care in the formation of health policies may be helpful in improving the services and quality of life of patients (Lantz, Lichtenstein & Pollack, 2007). Therefore, other factors such as sexual orientation, economic class and culture need to be factored in the development of health policies.
References
Lantz, P. M., Uchtenstein, R. L., & Pollack, H. A. (2007). Health Policy Approaches To Population Health: The Limits Of Medicalization. Health Affairs, 26(5), 1253-1257.
Leavitt, J.K (2003). Linking practice, policy and politics: Using nursing power to improve health. Presentation: Arlington, VA. Nurse in Washington Internship (NIWI) Program. Retrieved from http://www.aaacn.org/health-care-policy-nurses-crucial-role October 6, 2014.
