Health care policy development is an essential element of the medical system in general and nursing in particular. Since nurses interact with patients and directly implement the policies into practice daily, their perspective, knowledge, and understanding of the drawbacks and necessary changes are pivotal for the development of future public health care policies. Nonetheless, despite the potential and a rational validation of the necessity of nurses’ inclusion into the process of policy designing, their participation is insufficient, which is impacted by a variety of barriers.
The array of obstacles varies from individual to organizational ones, including the lack of competency, knowledge, and understanding of one’s opportunities to participate in policy-making, as well as inadequate collaborative actions, understaffing, and diminished leadership roles. Indeed, on an individual level, nurses often lack the experience and competence to influence and initiate policy changes. Furthermore, they often misunderstand that they have such a right and opportunity and merely perform at their immediate positions. On the other hand, according to Mason et al. (2016), there are two considerable barriers, namely the unwillingness of nurses to lead and the disorganized efforts within the community of nurses. Indeed, nursing organizations struggle “to collaborate within its ranks or with other groups on pressing health care issues” (Manson et al., 2016, p. 4). Another significant barrier is the overall understaffing in the nursing field, which forces nurses to perform their primary duties serving patients and does not allocate enough time to participate in policy-making.
Overall, nursing is a critical constituent of health care policy-making since nurses observe the inner state of the health care system through their daily practice and might be able to adjust it toward the population and organizational needs. However, such barriers as insufficient experience, knowledge, and role understanding, as well as unwillingness to lead, lack of organizational unity, and understaffing hinder nurses’ participation in policy-making. Therefore, it is vital to address these barriers at the federal, state, and organizational levels to facilitate nurses’ inclusion in the public policy development process.
Reference
Mason, D. J., Gardner, D. B., Hopkins Outlaw, F., & O’Grady, E. T. (2016). Policy & politics in nursing and health care (7th ed.). Elsevier.