The benchmark assesses the following competencies:

1.4 Participate in health care policy development to influence nursing practice and health care.

Research public health issues on the “Climate Change” or “Topics and Issues” pages of the American Public Health Association (APHA) website. Investigate a public health issue related to an environmental issue within the U.S. health care delivery system and examine its effect on a specific population.

Write a 750-1,000-word policy brief that summarizes the issue, explains the effect on the population, and proposes a solution to the issue.

Follow this outline when writing the policy brief:

1. Describe the policy health issue. Include the following information: (a) what population is affected, (b) at what level does it occur (local, state, or national), and (c) evidence about the issues supported by resources.
2. Create a problem statement.
3. Provide suggestions for addressing the health issue caused by the current policy. Describe what steps are required to initiate policy change. Include necessary stakeholders (government officials, administrator) and budget or funding considerations, if applicable.
4. Discuss the impact on the health care delivery system.

Include three peer-reviewed sources and two other sources to support the policy brief.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

Respond 

     As the CNO of my current healthcare organization having to restructure a top heavy nursing department with the intention of reducing financial loss, we must evaluate the best way to restructure the department without inadvertently losing employees in the process, as well as flattening the line to reduce additional cost. As a leader we must evaluate and assess all three decision-making models and integrate the problem at hand in each scenario.

            Overall, the PDSA makes the most sense in a scenario as sensitive to the possibility of resistance to change such as healthcare organizational changes. The PDSA Model also known as the Plan-Do-Study-Act or Plan-Do-Check-Act model is a methodology tool used as a part of the Institute for Healthcare improvements’ Model for Improvement. The PDSA tool is ultimately utilized to improve quality of care, in return improving healthcare safety disparities, patient adverse events, and producing a timely, effective, patient-centered solution to disparities, in this case nursing staffing shortages in healthcare organizations (Polit & Beck, 2017). The cycle consists of four steps, the first step is “plan”, planning a change in this case such as implementing to reduce leadership roles. Second step to the PDSA cycle is “do”, healthcare organization carries out the plan on a small scale or pilot program. In this scenario, the shift in personnel/staff  will be implemented on medical surgical units only where based from previous studies, the med-surg units are often times short staffed and hold lowest job satisfaction scores (Donnelly & Kirk, 2015). The third step is “study”, data and review analysis take priority, in this phase where researchers, administrators and leadership identify outcomes and lessons learned. The final step is “act”, essential step to facilitating effective change by gathering learned information, data and disseminating to associates to implement effective change.

Ask a question as well.