Health care policy issue
Health care policy issue
Order Instructions:
REQUIREMENTS
Assignment Criteria for
1. Introduce your chosen Health care policy issue(ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE FOR MINORITIES IN BROWARD COUNTY, FL), the current status, and an overview of your plan for a legislative visit.
2. Articulate key strategies involved in your plan, message, and recommendations under each of the Planning Your Visit Ungraded Worksheet 2 sections using headings in your paper. – SEE BELOW ON SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
3. Provide an analysis of empirical evidence supporting your approach strategies including plan, message, and follow-up.
4. Provide specific examples of the impact and/or importance of a successful visit/presentation to nursing.
5. Provide concluding statements summarizing the content.
6. Paper will be five (5) pages, excluding title and reference pages, and in APA format 6th edition.
PREPARING THE PAPER
Following completion of Planning Your Visit Ungraded Worksheet 2, develop a plan for visiting your policymaker, including the message, and the recommendation(s) you will deliver. Include a minimum of five (5) classic references or current references (published FROM 2011 to now) that support your plan, the message, and recommendations.
Specific Requirements
1. Review what has been done in the past by others regarding your chosen healthcare policy issue. What was the result of their actions related to this policy issue? Why is this issue important to nursing?
2. Who are the federal, state, and local policymakers involved in your chosen policy issue? How can you contact your policymaker? Be sure you single out a policymaker whom you know is interested in your issue.
3. What will be the plan for your presentation to the policymaker? When, where, and how?
4. What is the message you want to give to your selected policymaker/legislator? Can you present a compelling ‘story’? Can you convey your passion and experience with the policy issue? Can you present basic research data in an easy-to-understand and interesting way? What are you asking? What are you recommending? Please review the examples of a policy brief in your text or on the American Nurses Association website. What are your expectations of the policymaker and for your visit/presentation in general?
5. How do you plan to convey your message? What considerations must you have in place with respect to time constraints, availability of policymaker, and contingency plans?
6. Can you include a presentation using PowerPoint, flip chart, or overheads in some way (email or mail ahead of the call)? Include the actual presentation slides (max of 5 slides) in your final course presentation due week 7 (total 15 slides). What information (i.e. handouts) will you leave with the policymaker?
Guidelines for Policymaker/Legislative Visits
7. Most nurses are uncomfortable approaching policymakers, regardless of how prepared they are and how knowledgeable or passionate they are about their policy issue. Nurses tend to grossly underestimate their power and don’t initially understand that policymakers are receptive and anxious to have their input.
8. After you have selected your healthcare policy issue and have thoroughly researched it, develop a message or proposal that is clear and succinct. Be sure that you know the appropriate policymaker and the staff that you approach for your issue. Most students in this course will select a local-level policymaker such as a member of their city council or their local school board.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Health care policy issue
The health care policy issue of concern is poor access to healthcare in Broward County, Florida. Some of the barriers to healthcare as indicated by past community assessment conducted includes poor healthcare literacy, poverty and lack of medical cover (Varughes, 2013). This indicated that there is the need to simplify the healthcare systems, especially the navigation systems to ensure that everyone can obtain care (Varughes, 2013). The 2010 U.S. Census Bureau studies indicated that 24% of the Broward County residents lacked medical cover. The county reported the highest rate of uninsured children below the age of 18, and among the elderly above the age of 65 years (Silverman, 2013).
Broward County is reported to be the second most populated in the State and has the highest record in diversity. It has high percentage of minorities. Approximately, 14.3% of Broward population are aged (above 65 years). The county is also significantly affected by unemployment, with employment rate increasing to 8.1% by 2012 as compared to 4.5% in 2001. This indicated economic crisis (Varughes, 2013). In fact, statistic estimates that 15% of the Broward residents live below poverty levels. Approximately, 15.6% of youths below 18 years are reported to live below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). About 24.8% of the families are below the poverty line. This indicates an increase in number if people relying on public assistance (Silverman, 2013).
For this reason, accessing healthcare has become a challenge, putting the county at risk of communicable and non-communicable diseases. For instance, cardiovascular disorders were rated as the key reason behind the increased mortality for people above 75 years and above (Varughes, 2013). Cancer is also another challenge affecting the minorities and the leading cause of mortality. The non-communicable diseases that are reported to be high among the minorities include diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure. The mortality rates for unintentional injuries have also increased, especially unintentional falls among the elderly. The public health efforts include the capacity to develop age appropriate resources for minority, disabled people and ensure that all of these resources are culturally competent. This will help in promoting healthcare through increased health literacy (Silverman, 2013).
Empirical evidence Presentation
Stakeholders: The stakeholders that will be involved includes the health care managers in all healthcare facilities at the Broward county, Key staff of the local department of health as well as the administration of agency of health care as well as the state and the local advisory panels. These stakeholders will give the appropriate input into the policy revisions as well as developments (Varughes, 2013). Other stakeholders that will be involved include partners from various private sectors and government agencies to enhance effective policy development. These includes the Department of Business and professional regulation in Broward county and the emergency management in the Broward county, whose responsibilities will be to coordinate all the healthcare policies related to access of healthcare among the minorities (Silverman, 2013).
Location: The Selected special public health figures/ stakeholders will meet on December 5th, at 1600hrs. The location for the meeting will be held at the BHMC auditoriums. The mode of information to be transferred will be informed of PowerPoint presentations. The meeting is expected to take one hour, 10 minutes of introducing the key stakeholders, 30 minutes of talk, and fifteen minutes to answer questions that may arise during the meeting. Additionally, each of the members will be receive an email that contains all the relevant information about the policy (Silverman, 2013).
Policy statement issue: Increase access to healthcare among the minorities.
As indicated, the main barriers to healthcare facilities are lack of medical insurance, low health literacy and poverty. The federally qualified healthcare facilities in Broward County include the family health centres, memorial healthcare system and the Broward health (Rand, 2014). There in increased detachment between these major healthcare facilities with the minorities in the region (who are the most vulnerable people in the communities). This calls for culturally competent strategies to increase healthcare awareness and provide linkages between the healthcare facilities and these underprivileged people in Broward County (Datar & Chung, 2015).
Gaps identified/ current status: According to community health status assessment in Broward County, only 80.3% of the people have medical insurance. This is way below the state rate, which is 83%. Majority of the people without health insurance are from the minorities (Varughes, 2013).
Table 1.1 Lack of medical cover
Additionally, the number of healthcare resources that are available is inadequate to cater for the health demands in the county. For instance, the ratio of physicians who are licensed in the county per 100,000 populations is below the expected state rate, making the county become federally designated among the regions with shortage of the healthcare professionals (Healthy People 2020, 2012).
Table 1.2 Rates of licensed physicians
Despite the numerous intervention put in place by the previous governance, healthcare access is still an enormous public health concern among the minorities. This calls for development of community health plans that will address this challenge amicably, to produce a long term solution to this public menance (Healthy People 2020, 2012).
Health policy overview
Key strategies and policy implication
The aim of the Florida department of Health in the Broward County (FDOHBC) is to promote, protect as well as improve the health of the people, especially the minorities residing in Florida via integrated local and state efforts (Varughes, 2013). This involves engagement of the community through Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP). These approaches are strategic and have been widely adopted by communities to improve and facilitated improvement of community health and well-being (Silverman, 2013).
As indicated previously, there is increased detachment between the minorities and the major healthcare providers in the Broward community (Walter, Evans, and Atherwood, 2015). This calls for a rapid strategy to improve the navigational systems to ensure that the minorities can access healthcare at affordable prices. The community healthcare programmes must be integrated to increase healthcare awareness in the communities. The first priority is to increase the proportion of the Broward county minority’s medical coverage by 5% annually (Varughes, 2013). This is through increased assistance in completion of federally sponsored medical coverage such as Medicaid, Kidcare and Indigent care programs. Additionally, culturally competent materials, and resources that are age appropriate will be provided to the residents to simplify the medical cover application systems. These include referrals and enrolment of eligible residents in these federal managed medical cover systems (Varughes, 2013).
The second priority is implementation of three strategies that will remove the health barriers as well as improve the linkage between the minorities and the healthcare plan. This strategy will begin through performing a community based assessment to identify the community barriers. This will aid in identification of linkages in care. Strategies will be developed to eradicate and also to strengthen the linkages. The strategies developed must be culturally competent. The strategies will be evaluated and refined (Silverman, 2013).
Conclusion and Recommendations
Due to the increased diverse population in Broward county, the community health demands of the region is increasingly becoming more complex. This is attributable to fluctuations in economy that affect the county negatively, increasing unemployment rates and poverty levels. The recommended steps for this healthcare includes a) developing an action plan to identify and plan for the priorities; b) incorporation and implementation of the identified strategies, c) presentation of findings to the stakeholders and the communities, d) develop a tool to track the improvements to the community and e) establish a system to refine the established strategies.
References
Datar, A., & Chung, P. (2015). Changes in Socioeconomic, Racial/Ethnic, and Sex Disparities in Childhood Obesity at School Entry in the United States. JAMA Pediatrics.169:10 doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015
Healthy People 2020. (2012, May 6). Access to health care. Retrieved from http://www.healthypeople.gov.
Rand, H. (2014). Law & Water — Broward County Partners Collaborate to Conserve. Journal – American Water Works Association, 106:5, pp.38-41.
Silverman, P. (2013, April 4). Broward county community Health Assessment. Retrieved from www.floridahealth.gov/…/community…community…/broward-county
Varughes, S. (2013, March 15). Broward County community health improvement plan. Retrieved from http://hillsborough.floridahealth.gov/programs-and-services/community-health-planning-statistics/improvement-planning/index.html.0172
Walter, R., Evans, A. and Atherwood, S. (2015). Addressing the Affordable Housing Crisis for Vulnerable Renters: Insights From Broward County on an Affordable Housing Acquisition Tool. Housing Policy Debate, 1:27 DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2014.
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