Rationale Statement: In this assignment you will develop a policy brief which will be utilized in week 8 and sent to your US House of Representative member.
Instructions/Steps
Based on what you have learned throughout this course, especially in this Week 7, throughout your RN- BSN program, and from what you have gleaned from your health care and nursing practice, select a policy issue from the list below, study it, and create a policy brief on the topic. Examine at least three articles (from websites, libraries, journals, or so on) in addition to your learning resources. In week 8, you will be writing to your US Congressional Representative (from the House of Representatives) and attaching this brief. Most likely, they will not have any knowledge of the issue, so you want it understandable and to the point
Choose a policy issue from the following list: (there is current legislation on each one). After choosing, research the subject and narrow it down to one main, simple, specific recommendation and something that a Federal congressman can address. You are strongly encouraged to identify the current legislation for your subject. (ie: For vaccine hesitancy, you might want to specify a way of addressing this issue such as authorizing funding for an educational poster campaign that can be issued to all healthcare entities participating in Medicare / Medicaid billing. This is just an example and you may not use this example as your recommendation.).
Drug Costs and ensuring patient access to needed and affordable medications. What is the current legislation? Can the bill be improved upon, and if so, how?
Application Programming Interfaces (API)s – to allow EHRs to communicate and access each other. This had been a previous mandate, so what happened?
Maternal Health Bundles – bundling care to provide pregnant women complete access to healthcare from the confirmation of pregnancy to 6 or 9wk postpartum. May, 2023 the HHS provided funding.
Vaccine Hesitancy – 2021-2025 National Vaccine Plan – this includes alleviating false information on vaccines on social media. We have a plan, so how can that be fully utilized?
Virtual Care Visits and Telehealth – how can this be improved?
Using the provided template and instructions found on the attachment write a policy brief on one main, simple and specific recommendation within the topic you have chosen. Remember, the recommendation needs to be realistic in what a congressional person can do, so again, look at current bills and see if there is anything you might ask for support of, or recommend a change to. (APA format is required for only the in-text citations and corresponding reference section – see template for formatting). NOTE – You will recieve 0 points if the provided template is not used.
You need a minimum of 2 resources from from the UIC Library or an outside data base on the topic that is peer reviewed and < 2 years old, and a minimum of 1 other outside current (< 2yr old) source such as a government or organizational website.