PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING IN 50 WORDS OR MORE:
Barrier #2; Nurses are not visible in healthcare policy making.
According to Anders (2021), nurses are professionals who are directly involved in patient care. Engagement front line nurses have with patients, and other healthcare professionals, make them ideal healthcare policy advocates. They have appropriate academic education and clinical expertise to serve as experts in sharing their knowledge with policymakers and others. Any other profession cannot replicate the situational knowledge of the healthcare needs of patients that this large workforce offers.
However, nurses’ access to policy-making processes is limited. The author supports the concept of barrier by explaining that despite nursing’s intrinsic involvement in the advocacy of the individual patient, the nursing voice is often not heard at a public level. Since nurses represent approximately 50% of the global health workforce, they should be actively involved in policy-making processes. However, nursing representation at the government and boardroom level is still slim (Anders, 2021).
The author suggests how nurses can participate in policy development. Meaningful policy change can occur at the institutional level, where nurses are accustomed to functioning. Nurses’ involvement in self‐governance within hospitals presents opportunities for staff nurses to participate in the clinical governance at a local level. Nurses can also begin as a member contributing to online discussions, blogs, or social media interest groups sponsored by the association, then progress to active participation in any number of subcommittees, and finally run for office.
References
Anders R. L. (2021). Engaging nurses in health policy in the era of COVID-19. National Library of Medicine 56(1), 89–94. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7675349/Links to an external site.