Advocating for the Nursing Role in Program Design and Implementation
EDWIN NJERU
Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 10:28 AM
to DANIEL
Assignment: Advocating for the Nursing Role in Program Design and Implementation
As their names imply, the honeyguide bird and the honey badger both share an affinity for honey. Honeyguide birds specialize in finding beehives but struggle to access the honey within. Honey badgers are well-equipped to raid beehives but cannot always find them. However, these two honey-loving species have learned to collaborate on an effective means to meet their objectives. The honeyguide bird guides honey badgers to newly discovered hives. Once the honey badger has ransacked the hive, the honey guide bird safely enters to enjoy the leftover honey.
Much like honeyguide birds and honey badgers, nurses and health professionals from other specialty areas can—and should—collaborate to design effective programs. Nurses bring specialties to the table that make them natural partners to professionals with different specialties. When nurses take the requisite leadership in becoming involved throughout the healthcare system, these partnerships can better design and deliver highly effective programs that meet objectives.
In this Assignment, you will practice this type of leadership by advocating for a healthcare program. Equally as important, you will advocate for a collaborative role of the nurse in the design and implementation of this program. To do this, assume you are preparing to be interviewed by a professional organization/publication regarding your thoughts on the role of the nurse in the design and implementation of new healthcare programs.
To Prepare:
• Review the Resources and reflect on your thinking regarding the role of the nurse in the design and implementation of new healthcare programs.
• Select a healthcare program within your practice and consider the design and implementation of this program.
• Reflect on advocacy efforts and the role of the nurse in relation to healthcare program design and implementation.
The Assignment: (2–4 pages)
In a 2- to 4-page paper, create an interview transcript of your responses to the following interview questions:
• Tell us about a healthcare program, within your practice. What are the costs and projected outcomes of this program?
• Who is your target population?
• What is the role of the nurse in providing input for the design of this healthcare program? Can you provide examples?
• What is your role as an advocate for your target population for this healthcare program? Do you have input into design decisions? How else do you impact design?
• What is the role of the nurse in healthcare program implementation? How does this role vary between design and implementation of healthcare programs? Can you provide examples?
• Who are the members of a healthcare team that you believe are most needed to implement a program? Can you explain why?
Nurses and health practitioners from other fields can combine efforts and work together where they will benefit mutually from one another. Not only can the two parties benefit mutually from one another but also members of the public can also gain a lot from the services that can come from the collaboration. For this collaboration of nurses and health practitioners to work efficiently, there is a need to develop a healthcare program where the nurses and other health professionals will work systematically. The health program that I will advocate in this discussion is a health education program that will involve both nurses and other health practitioners.
The health education program will entail organizing classes and seminars where the nurses and other health practitioners will engage members of the public in an interaction. The health education classes and seminars will be taking place in social venues such as social halls, halls in health centers (Jeihooni, Jamshidi, Kashfi, Avand & Khiyali, 2017). Other significant venues are social institutions such as schools and religious centers. For a start, the health education program will not require many funds in carrying out health education. The essential funds that the health education program will require to run will cover the allowances for the nurses and other health practitioners. Sustaining the allowance that nurses and other health practitioners will receive can be possible and the source for these funds is small charges public members will pay for the education classes. The outcome of this health education program is for public members to improve their health lives and reduces the number of patients coming to the hospital in the future.
The target population for my health education program mainly will be people who require special medical care. One group of people that I will target are people who are above the age of 60 years, both men and women. The reason why I will need to focus on this group is that chronic illnesses start to attack people when they reach the age of 60 years. Another potential group of people that the health education program will target are lactating and young mothers (Jeihooni, Jamshidi, Kashfi, Avand & Khiyali, 2017). Including this group of lactating and young mothers is essential since these mothers will benefit more from how to raise healthy children.
The role of the nurses in the education health program will be identifying and addressing the needs of the public members coming to the classes and seminars. The reason why nurses will focus on health needs is that they have more medical experience and also knowledge on how to handle the patients. A good example is where the nurses will be engaging in conversations with the public members as a way of identifying the specific health needs patients have.
As an advocate to the target population in the health education program, my main role will be mobilizing people and creating awareness concerning the health education program. I can achieve this mobilization through mass media channels and also in social institutions such as schools and religious centers. Also, the nurses will play a significant in the design and implementation of the health education program. In the design of the health education program, the nurse will combine efforts with health professionals from other fields in developing more information concerning health. The main role of other health practitioners will be providing nurses with wide research information that the nurses will require in addressing the health needs. When it comes to the implementation, the nurses will put into practice the health knowledge by passing it to the public members attending the classes and seminars.
The healthcare members that the health education program to run are senior medical officers especially those in charge of the local health centers. The main role that the senior medical officers will play is giving the nurses chances to participate in the health education program. Other healthcare members that the health education program will require to run are professionals from the field of nutrition. These nutrition professionals will play an important role in passing wide information to the nurses concerning health education.
References
Jeihooni, A. K., Jamshidi, H., Kashfi, S. M., Avand, A., & Khiyali, Z. (2017). The effect of health education program based on health belief model on oral health behaviors in pregnant women of Fasa city, Fars province, south of Iran. Journal of International Society of Preventive & Community Dentistry, 7(6), 336.
