Nurses play an immensely important role in influencing health policies and legislation. The primary method to do so is through the process of health care delivery. Most importantly, Edelman, Mandle, and Kudzma (2018) claim that nurses should employ interprofessional practices to be effective influencers of health policies. This means that their work should be based on collaboration with other specialists, including not only physicians and therapists but also social workers and psychologists (Edelman et al., 2018). Besides, nurses could alter health policies and legislation by being advocates, care managers, consultants, healers, researchers, and deliverers of services (Edelman et al., 2018). The current essay discusses the previously mentioned functions.
The major reason why nurses have the possibility to influence health policies is that they work closely with the people. This, in turn, enables them to understand their problems, concerns, and requirements better. Consequently, when nurses realize that patients needs are not met, they “try to make the system more responsive” (Edelman et al., 2018, p. 90). As a care manager, nurses can prevent duplication of the provided services and the efficient allocation of a hospitals resources. From this perspective, nurses try to mobilize resources if they see that the quality of the provided services is low.
In addition to that, nurses provide knowledge on disease prevention, immunization, daily safety, drug therapy, regular medical examinations, and even nutrition (Edelman et al., 2018). In other words, they are capable of raising population awareness on the wide range of aspects of health care. When people possess more information on how domestic health care operates and how to stay healthy, this undoubtedly leads to changes in the health care system because people create new demands that should be satisfied by the government.
Reference
Edelman, C. L., Mandle, C. L., & Kudzma. E. C. (2018). Health promotion throughout the life span (8th ed.). Elsevier Mosby.