Strategies that Staff Nurses Can Use to Share Evidence that Could Impact Health Policy Decisions

Strategies that Staff Nurses Can Use to Share Evidence that Could Impact Health Policy Decisions

Nurses play an integral role in enhancing healthcare for patients. The plans, actions, and decisions they undertake to perform their duties facilitate the achievement of specific healthcare goals in the community. The activities or programs of staff nurses may include any law, regulation, or research that positively impacts patients’ health and the health practitioners in public health, individual health, care providers, and pharmaceutical companies, among others. However, nurses can adopt the following strategies to ensure they share evidence that could impact health policy decisions.

Enhancing leveraged community leadership skills is one of the strategies. De et al. (2019) state that nurses exhibit a high professional voice, experience, and credibility to carry out community health leadership. Participating in leadership activities such as leading community health initiatives, educating the community on health matters, and strengthening the health nurse network enables them to acquire qualitative and quantitative data throughout the community. Community health initiatives such as disease screening to enhance awareness would help nurses provide an evidence-based report from the data collected. Hence, the information obtained from the data representation can be used as evidence, which, when shared, enhances the implementation of health policy decisions in response to the data accepted by nurses.

Another strategy is to practice appropriate health advocacy. Nurses contribute to daily patient attendance in healthcare facilities, making them understand all the challenges and weaknesses they encounter and their patients’ challenges (Melnyk & Fineout-Overhold, 2022). Utilization of this knowledge in boardrooms for policy transformation is critical in implementing policies. Therefore, staff nurses can apply advocacy skills in presenting their patient attendance experiences, which are used as evidence to health policymakers, whose share brings about policy change in healthcare services.

Getting involved in local policymaking is another strategy that staff nurses can use to enhance the sharing of evidence. According to Bindon (2017), various nursing policies require the involvement of nursing organizations to provide information about what should be prioritized or not. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing organizations were utilized to spread awareness about chain problems in the procurement of personal protective equipment and other essential commodities. Therefore, nurses’ involvement in policymaking is the best strategy to ensure that the evidence about issues affecting them is adequately shared. This is because nurses provide first-hand information on any experience that requires a policy change approach.

Finally, nurses can utilize a research-based strategy. The strategy is vital since it involves systematic investigation and application of study materials and sources to develop facts (Aglen, 2016). Staff nurses would research the contemporary issues they encounter in their daily practices and formulate a substantive report containing fats and insights through a conceptual and theoretical framework of evidence. Hence, the information from the research justifies the existence of issues that require policy making, whereby the submission of the research to healthcare policymakers constitutes shared evidence that requires a critical approach.

From the above illustrations, it is evident that staff nurses can apply various strategies to ensure that they share their expertise in health policy decisions. This includes engaging in research, participating in health community leadership, practising good health advocacy practices, and involving themselves in policymaking. However, sharing this evidence should be accompanied by high-quality engagement and communication skills to ensure that policymakers understand every bit of evidence provided so that they can act on it accordingly. Sharing this evidence should also be accompanied by fact-based data on contemporary issues to enhance its credibility.

References

Aglen, B. (2016). Pedagogical strategies to teach bachelor students evidence-based practice: A systematic review. Nurse Education Today, pp. 36, 255–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2015.08.025

Bindon, S. L. (2017). Professional development strategies to enhance nurses’ knowledge and maintain a safe practice. AORN Journal, 106(2), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aorn.2017.06.002

de Lange, W., Kars, M. C., Poslawsky, I. E., Schuurmans, M. J., & Hafsteinsdóttir, T. B. (2019). Postdoctoral nurses’ experiences with leadership and career development: a qualitative study. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 51(6), 689–698. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12519

Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overhold, E. (2022). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

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What strategies can staff nurses use to share evidence that could impact health policy decisions?

Strategies that Staff Nurses Can Use to Share Evidence that Could Impact Health Policy Decisions

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