LINKING VULNERABLE POPULATIONS, THEORY, AND RESEARCH TO POLICY
Introduction
It is no doubt that there is a need to improve public health. Some of the strategies used to improve public health include formulation of effective public health policies and allocation of funds towards public health (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). Developing appropriate health policies; evidence-based, and allocation of enough resources results in elevated standards of public health. Therefore, researchers identify the key metrics in public health that are used to improve effective health policies and terminate the poor ones. One of the healthcare issues that need to be properly addressed is violence among healthcare providers. There are dozens of reports filed across different healthcare organizations relating to violence at workplace. Hence, it is paramount for researchers to shift their focus from just ailments to other issues affecting care of patients (Aday, 2001). Therefore, this paper “highlights the five issues in nursing research related to health policy, involvement of nurses in health policies, limits of medicalization and health policy center, and how I envision my future research shaping health policy.”
General Issues Relating Programs of Research to Health Policy
In the text, “Forging the Missing Link”, Hinshaw and Grady point out at five general issues related to programs of research and health policy (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). The first issue is culture and belief. For the past thirty years, nursing research purposed to improve patient care has continued to evolve. In 1956, nurse studies outnumbered nursing practice in a ratio of one and ten. Therefore, there was a need to conduct more research focused on addressing practice issues. Research was being conducted on areas specific ailments and not many areas surrounding care were left unattended. Hence, issues such as culture and beliefs held by healthcare providers and the public should also be incorporated into nursing research (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
The other issue is knowledge and research development. There is need for the researchers to possess knowledge in all areas affecting healthcare (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). Research should not only be focused on specific ailments, but also all issues affecting healthcare. Issues mostly neglected in nursing research include culture and violent behaviors among healthcare providers. For any nursing research findings to be successfully adopted in the development of health policies, there should exist public awareness on the contributions of that nursing research to patient care (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). The public awareness will enable the researcher to get more resources for research purposes. Concurrently, public awareness on the essentiality of nursing research towards healthcare should conduct through different avenues such as print and electronic media, seminars, and conferences (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
The political engagement in the nursing research should provide proper leadership. It should also provide communication materials needed to educate the lawmakers, the public and other organizations interested in nursing research (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). For instance, journals addressing the issue of violence at workplace can be issued to all healthcare providers as part of the efforts to curb this behavior. Interest group activation is the other issue that arises regarding nursing research and health policy. An interest group is formed within nursing and its professional organization for specific purposes (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). Interest groups visit and discuss the issue affecting them with lawmakers such as the Congress. Their discussions are unified since they are based on the stance taken by the nursing community (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
Lessons Learnt
During nursing research, it is imperative to consider the culture and belief of the public. In most aspects, this is because the policies developed have significant impacts on the public (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). Hence, health policies should promote a culture that is in line with improving health. Nursing research should not only concentrate on the specific ailments or diseases. Instead, nursing research should also address other issues that affect the healthcare delivery such as violence at workplace (Aday, 2001).
The lessons learnt are applicable in my vulnerable population, and that is, healthcare providers focusing on violence at workplace. All the individuals have beliefs and customs that they highly respect (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010). Hence, policymakers should put this into consideration. For quite a long time, most research studies focused on specific ailments such as depression. However, no one made efforts to conduct research on why healthcare providers are engaged in violence at workplace. Understanding the factors mitigating this problem can help in developing strategies to combat this behavior (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
Involvement of Nurses in Health Policy
In 2008, few nurses were involved in health policy (Rab-Wilson, 2008). It is imperative to note that every policy developed is supposed to be put into action in order to promote the welfare of the society. The policy process comprises of three phases; policy formulation, policy implementation and policy modification (Lantz et al., 2007). Currently, there are still few nurses involved in the health policy. Hence, the National League for Nursing (NLN) is continuing with efforts to involve more nurses in developing policies that greatly affect nurses (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
Limits of Medicalization
Limits of medicalization refer to, “the strong tendency to ‘medicalize’ health status problem and to assume that their primary solution involves medical care” (Lantz et al., 2007).In most cases, policy makers concentrate on increasing geographical and financial accessibility to personal health services for vulnerable populations. The impact of this approach on public health is negligence of key social and economic disparities that exist among the public. However, we can say that overall, the approach has elevated the standards of public health, despite its limitations (Lantz et al., 2007).
The issue of medicalization impacts my vulnerable population. Most nursing researches are focused on specific ailments. However, the issue of violence at workplace has significant impacts on the quality of care delivered. Despite this significance, there is only little research that has been done on this area (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
Public Health Center
Mayo Clinic has an established health policy center. The center focuses on reforming healthcare in order to improve its quality (Mayo Clinic, n.d). The center also seeks to employ widespread consensus and collaboration in order to establish successful healthcare system. Since 2006, the policy center convenes healthcare expertise and healthcare in bid to establish a patient-centered healthcare delivery system. Public health centers are located within the healthcare organization (Mayo Clinic, n.d).
The purpose of Mayo public health center is to create value through improving patient outcomes. The center is also focused on providing health insurance for all individuals. In addition, the center purposes to coordinate care and reform the payment systems (Mayo Clinic, n.d). Public health centers are related to healthcare providers involved in violent behaviors at workplace, and this is because health policy centers are aimed at improving the patient outcomes. Hence, issues such as violence at workplace that interfere with patient outcomes are addressed by these centers (Hinshaw & Grady, 2010).
My Future Work
My work on nursing research will mostly focus on issues that remain unaddressed despite the ability to negatively affect delivery of healthcare. These issues include violence at workplace, practice settings, and culture (Aday, 2001). In addition, I will advocate for the enacted of “no-bullying polices in places of work” and establish workplace training program that teach caregivers on the effects of workplace violence.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have discussed the five issues of nursing research related to health policy. They are culture and beliefs, political engagement, knowledge and research development, public awareness and interest group activation. Today, nurses are still not involved in health policies. We have also focused on Mayo health policy center.
References
Aday, L. (2001). The health and health care needs of vulnerable populations in the United States (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Hinshaw, A. S. & Grady, P. (2010). Shaping health policy through nursing research. New York: pringer Publishing Co., Inc
Lantz, P., Lichtenstein, R., & Pollack, H. (2007). Health policy approaches to population health: The limits of medicalization. Health Affairs, 26 (5), 1253-1257.
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. Retrieved October 16, 2014, from http://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic/health-policy-center
Rab-Wilson, D. (2008). Nurses are missing from health care policy.AJN, January 2008, 18(1), 13.
