Main Question Post

Participating in policy review is a very important part that nurses can take part in. This allows nurses to evaluate a policy and be able to then participate in the actual review process of these policies. With that said, becoming a member of professional nursing organizations is a great way to start being involved in nursing policy and review. The American Nurses Association (n.d.) discusses ways to get involved. One being a part of RNAction. Within this, nurses are able to search legislation and issues as well as ways to take action, (ANA, n.d.). One challenge I immediately come into contact with is memberships. I have had memberships with professional organizations such as the American Association of Critical- Care Nurses. As I have transitioned from bedside nursing to the back end of Quality Nursing and being in school to advance my career, I have not maintained all of my memberships through these professional organizations. With that said, it would be helpful for me to obtain memberships where I have an interest in policy and evaluations. Currently it would be in the back end of the hospital quality aspect, however, I am not sure where my Nurse Practitioner degree will take me.

One way I currently participate in policy review is by my current position as a Quality Analyst (QA) Nurse. A good portion of my job is chart review. I am given chart referrals that come by way of triggers. I then create a timeline of events of the patients hospital stay. With that said, I am able to take an issue of concern and work through the hospitals current policy and procedures. In doing so, I am able to determine if the policy/ procedure was followed and if not, why? Sometimes we come into contact of a situation where the policy or procedure is not user friendly and does require some change. With that said, I use the AACN website to look for articles on the topic at hand and review current articles to evaluate new evidence based practice, (AACN, n.d.). With these articles I am able to begin a search to find ways to tweek the current policy/ procedures to make it better. Some challenges I encounter are that the articles do not always relate directly to the patient population at my current facility. The policy change needs to be in the best interest of the patients, staff, and physicians, etc. In order to overcome this, changes to these types of policies/ procedures have to have a collaborative effort with nurses, IT, informatics as well as physicians.

References

American Association of Critical- Care Nurses. (n.d.). Education. Retrieved on July 28, 2020 from https://www.aacn.org/education

American Nurses Association, (n.d.). Federal issues. Retrieved on July 28, 2020 from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/advocacy/federal/