NURS 8002 Blog Positive Social Change and the DNP-Prepared Nurse
NURS 8002 Blog Positive Social Change and the DNP-Prepared Nurse
A DNP-prepared nurse engages in various aspects of care to improve patient outcomes. One of such is advocacy. A DNP-prepared nurse can be an advocate for the patients, the profession, and communities. Therefore, it is vital to enact personal and professional commitment for advocacy that can bring positive impacts (Chism, 2021). As an individual and a professional, I envision using the knowledge and skills I have acquired to influence policy decisions affecting my patients, the community, and the profession. With the knowledge obtained, I will use an expert’s voice to influence legislators to pass favorable regulations and laws. Besides, I plan to assume leadership roles at influential leadership roles that can positively influence care decisions to support positive health outcomes among patients and communities and promote the nursing profession. For example, taking up leadership roles that would enable me to sit at the State Board of Nurses to be in a position to influence decisions.
As an advanced practice nurse one of my strategies to implement and increase participation in healthcare policy making is to join the ranks of my union 1199 SEIU to help draft policies that address the importance of universal health care or single payer option. For decades I have been helping my organization fight and lobby Congress to implement universal healthcare for all. During the COVID-19 pandemic we implemented a similar system in order to ensure that patients who had COVID-19 were not charged for treatment nor were they charged for vaccines this was a step in the right direction but we need to be more aggressive and ensuring that this nation which is the wealthiest nation in the world and one of the most advanced offers its citizens universal health care. Being an advocate for our patients it’s not just caring for them but fighting for them outside the hospital or health care setting. Although we have Obamacare we are still short of providing the most basic fundamental right to our citizens which is the right to health care. Health care is a right not a privilege and studies have shown that when people have access to universal health care they have better health outcomes. “Involvement in health policy is the most important role an NP can have in impacting positive change in health care that will benefit multiple generations of patients across institutions, states, the nation, and even globally; Together we can significantly improve the health of patients through our involvement on the front lines of health policy” (Chilton, 2015)
A DNP-prepared nurse also contributes to advocacy for positive social change in several ways. One way to contribute to advocacy for positive social change is through conducting innovative research (Mathieson et al., 2019). With the research skills obtained as a DNP-prepared nurse, I will be able to conduct and understand specific care aspects of various communities, especially the marginalized and vulnerable communities, identify opportunities for positive social change and help trigger the necessary strategies for the change (De Chesnay & Anderson, 2019). I will also seek to partner and collaborate with various community interest groups and offer expert service for fuelling positive social change. In such an environment, one of the roles I can undertake is helping the groups to formulate advocacy plans and help them implement the plans. Therefore, DNP-prepared nurses play a critical role in advocacy for patients, communities, and the profession in addition to a positive social change.
You are and will continue to be a change agent in all you do as a current or future advanced practice nurse. Consider how you may improve patient care, your organization and nursing practice, and the community you serve. How would obtaining a DNP degree assist you in advocating for positive social change while also proving your dedication to encouraging innovation for change in nursing practice?
Examine the Discussion Learning Resources and evaluate how you, as a present or future advanced practice nurse, will strive for and commit to advocating for positive social change. Consider how your present nursing practice experiences and future prospects will help you to be a more effective change agent.
To get ready:
Examine the Learning Resources and consider your personal and professional commitment to patient, community, and profession advocacy.
Consider how your job as a DNP-prepared nurse might help advocate for good social change.
Week 11’s third day
Post a description of how you intend to implement personal and professional advocacy commitments to positively impact your patients, communities, and profession. Make your point. Then, explain how your job as a DNP-prepared nurse contributes to constructive social change advocacy.
I agree something needs to be done for both those issues. Essential II: Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Improvement and Systems Thinking allows the DNP graduate nurse to review and help amend policy within the system (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2006). For those eloping patients, there has to be a whole in the system of the organization that is allowing them to leave. At my current facility, there are different levels of sitters. For those that are at an elopement risk, they would require a higher level sitter, trained to handle these types of psych patients. Security is also notified for those who are not assigned to the psych unit. The security would round on those who have been placed on a regular Med-Surg floor because those floors are not locked down. We also have a behavior health code. Our employees have a button on our badge that when pressed sends out an alert. It knows our location based on the position of our badge and will echo the call to that area. The facility that I work at now has a great number of patients going through withdrawal. The changes to their system were necessary for this population of patients. Your facility will have to change its system thinking to prepare for this new population of patients.
Reference
By Day 5 of Week 11
Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses and respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by expanding upon your colleague’s post or suggesting an alternative approach for enacting positive social change as a DNP-prepared nurse.
Submission and Grading Information
Grading Criteria
To access your rubric:
Week 11 Blog Rubric
Post by Day 3 of Week 11 and Respond by Day 5 of Week 11
To Participate in this Blog:
Week 11 Blog
Congratulations! After you have finished all of the assignments for this week, you have completed the course. Please submit your Course Evaluation by Day 7.
Week 11: The DNP-Prepared Nurse as an Advocate for Social Change
When you think of an advocate for social change, what comes to mind? As it impacts the role of a nurse, how does a nurse present advocacy for promoting social change?
Throughout this course, you have considered and reflected on how the DNP-prepared nurse advocates for positive social change, whether that stems from direct patient-level care or more broadly to that of community-level or population-based actions to promote nursing practice and healthcare delivery.
As a DNP-prepared nurse, you will also function as a nurse leader in identifying and serving as a champion of those nursing practice
and healthcare-related issues that merit transformation. In what ways will your advocacy and leadership impact the patients, communities, and populations you serve?
This week, you analyze the role of the DNP-prepared nurse in promoting advocacy for social change. In your Blog Assignment, you and your colleagues will have the opportunity to share your perspectives and examine your role for positive leadership and you continue your program of study.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Analyze the role of the DNP-prepared nurse in promoting advocacy for social change
Learning Resources
Required Readings (click to expand/reduce)
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The social change model (SCM) promotes equity, social justice, self-knowledge, service, and collaboration. SCM is a framework for additional leadership development programs that target students who may not have experience in leadership. “Students lack the experience required to feel comfortable with change, but they come into nursing with a sense of commitment that can be encouraged toward leadership for social change and health equity through best practices derived from the SCM” (Read et al., 2016).
I experienced advocating for appropriate patient-centered care as a float nurse in the emergency department (ER) with an elderly dementia patient. This situation is very upsetting, and there need to be more caring nurses adhering to patient advocacy. I was still in the orientation phase, and I partnered up with another nurse on the night shift in the ER department caring for an elderly patient. My nursing co-worker was very rude and unprofessional to the elderly patient. She yelled at the patient, telling the patient to lay down and give her arm to begin IV treatment. The elderly patient was screaming “NO”. The nurse ignored the patient’s screams and continued to access the IV site. I then intervened and told the patient to try and claim down, and she could hold my hands if she needed to. After administering IV treatment to the patient, my co-worker told the elderly patient that she needed to calm down and lay in bed before she administered arm restraint. I was in shock at how unprofessional my co-worker was towards the elderly patient. When we left the patient’s room, my co-worker stated that the old lady was insane and she was not going back in the patient’s room for the remainder of our shift. I was distraught. I reported my co-worker to the charge nurse and the attending physician on duty.
I also advocated for the patient to the attending physician to receive a relaxing medication to ease the patient’s anxiety and discomfort level. The MD evaluated the patient and took my advice to administer a relaxing medication. I also periodically checked in with the elderly patient to make sure she was okay and needed anything. Elderly patients stated to me, “Thank you for taking good care of me, and there should be more caring nurses like you in the world”. I almost cried because I could not believe how mistreated she was with “abuse, neglect”. I felt proud to advocate for this patient’s healthcare needs, even if it might throw my co-worker under the bus. Sometimes nurses forget what their duties are as far as caring for patients and making patients feel safe under their care.
Patient advocacy represents safeguarding of tracking medical errors and protecting patients from incompetency or misconduct of co-workers and other healthcare team members. Rapid changes in the medical sciences and technologies resulted in advance of new methods of care delivery and changes in healthcare policies. Therefore, nurses sometimes have difficulties obtaining health-related information and decision-making from patients, leading to someone advocating for them. Nurses can build a relationship with a patient with effective patient advocacy by preserving patients’ values, benefits, and autonomy. Doing so increases patients’ safety, self-control, and quality of life (Abbasinia et al., 2020).
The DNP-prepared nurse is essential to advocate for positive social change through many different ways like health care policy. They have the clinical proficiency and the educational background to present the case for passing legislation on health care issues (Chilton, 2015). As a DNP-prepared nurse, I will use my educational background and experience to conduct quality improvement projects in my working environments and use these evidence-based findings to help advocate and implement new policies changes within my organization.
Overall, positive social change is a great way to advocate for appropriate patient’s care and healthcare policy. Healthcare professionals are at the front line to treat multiple patients with unique needs and relate personal experiences regarding how lawmaking can impact these patients (Chilton, 2015). With the evolving development of advocating for social change, healthcare providers can improve healthcare outcomes for individuals in the forthcoming future.
Kind Regards,
References
Abbasinia, M., Ahmadi, F., & Kazemnejad, A. (2020). Patient advocacy in nursing: A concept analysis. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 141–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733019832950
Chilton, L. (2015). Nurse Practitioners Have an Essential Role in Health Policy. The Journals of Nurse Practitioners, 11(2), 19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2014.10.009
Read, C. Y., Pino Betancourt, D.,M., & Morrison, C. (2016). Social change: A framework for inclusive leadership development in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 55(3), 164-167. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20160216-08
Commitment for a Positive Impact
As a DNP-prepared nurse, I plan on a commitment to advocacy that will positively impact my patients, communities, and the profession. I plan on achieving this in several ways. My main career goal as a DNP-prepared nurse is to become an educator for advanced practice nurses. I plan on using my knowledge gained during my DNP program to positively impact my future students. For example, I will use my knowledge of the importance of literature reviews and evidence-based practice to enact a practice change. I will encourage my advanced nursing students to research and find the best evidence available to answer clinical questions and create practice changes. I believe this will also positively impact the future of the profession. According to Read et al. (2016), there is a “need to educate nurses who can meet the present and future demands of health care.” If I can impact and influence future nurses, especially advanced practice nurses, they will be able to advance and impact the profession themselves.
I also believe as a DNP-prepared nurse, I will be able to positively impact my patients. Currently, I am working in a perioperative area of a hospital. I can use my knowledge to initiate practice changes, as I mentioned above. By implementing changes that can increase the quality of care, I will be impacting my current and future patients. The knowledge I will gain throughout this program will only help me in creating more positive change in my current workplace.
Social Change Advocacy
The role of a DNP-prepared nurse contributes to advocacy for positive social change in many ways. Walden University’s (2021) definition of positive social change is “a deliberate process of creating and applying ideas, strategies, and actions to promote the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, cultures, and societies.” As a DNP-prepared nurse, I will have many opportunities to accomplish this. For example, creating and applying a practice change that will improve the quality of care patients receive in the perioperative area is advocating for positive social change. This action will promote the development of the institution as it increases the quality of patient care. This change will also positively impact the patients that receive care at this institution. By implementing practice changes, the DNP-prepared nurse is promoting positive social change.
References
Read, C. Y., Pino Betancourt, D. M., & Morrison, C. (2016). Social change: A framework for inclusive leadership: Development in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 55(3), 164-167. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20160216-08.
Walden University (2021). Vision, Mission, and Goals. https://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=61&navoid=9236#:~:text=Vision%2C%20Mission%2C%20and%20Goals%201%20Vision.%20Walden%20University,Outcomes.%20…%206%20University%20Values%207%20Values.%20
Rubric Detail
Select Grid View or List View to change the rubric’s layout.
Name: NURS_8002_Week11_Blog_Rubric
| Excellent
90%–100% |
Good
80%–89% |
Fair
70%–79% |
Poor
0%–69% |
|||
| Main Posting:
Response to the Blog prompt is reflective with critical analysis and synthesis representative of knowledge gained from the course readings for the module and current credible sources. |
18 (30%) – 20 (33.33%)
Thoroughly responds to the Blog prompt(s). Is reflective with critical analysis and synthesis representative of knowledge gained from the course readings for the module and/or current practice experiences. No less than 75% of post has exceptional depth and breadth. |
16 (26.67%) – 17 (28.33%)
Responds to most of the Blog prompt(s). Is somewhat reflective with critical analysis and synthesis representative of knowledge gained from the course readings for the module and/or current practice experiences. 50% of the post has exceptional depth and breadth. |
14 (23.33%) – 15 (25%)
Responds to some of the Blog prompt(s). One to two criteria are not addressed or are superficially addressed. Is somewhat lacking reflection and critical analysis and synthesis. Somewhat represents knowledge gained from the course readings for the module. |
0 (0%) – 13 (21.67%)
Does not respond to the Blog prompt(s). Lacks depth or superficially addresses criteria. Lacks reflection and critical analysis and synthesis. Does not represent knowledge gained from the course readings for the module. |
||
| Main Posting:
Writing |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Written clearly and concisely. Contains no grammatical or spelling errors. Adheres to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Written concisely. May contain one to two grammatical or spelling errors. Adheres to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Written somewhat concisely. May contain more than two spelling or grammatical errors. Contains some APA formatting errors. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Not written clearly or concisely. Contains more than two spelling or grammatical errors. Does not adhere to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
||
| Main Posting:
Timely and full participation |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Meets requirements for timely, full, and active participation. Posts main Blog post by due date. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Posts main Discussion by due date. Meets requirements for full participation. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Posts main Blog post by due date. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Does not meet requirements for full participation. Does not post main Blog post by due date. |
||
| First Response:
Post to colleague’s main post that is reflective. |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Response exhibits critical thinking and application to practice settings. Responds to questions posed by faculty. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Response has some depth and may exhibit critical thinking or application to practice setting. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Response is on topic and may have some depth. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Response may not be on topic and lacks depth. |
||
| First Response: Writing |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues. Response fully answers faculty questions, if posed. Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas. Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Communication is mostly professional and respectful to colleagues. Response mostly answers faculty questions, if posed. Provides opinions and ideas. Response is written in standard, edited English. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Response posed in the Blog may lack effective professional communication. Response somewhat answers faculty questions, if posed. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Responses posted in the Blog lack effective communication. Response to faculty questions is missing. |
||
| First Response: Timely and full participation |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Meets requirements for timely, full, and active participation. Posts by due date. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Meets requirements for full participation. Posts by due date. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Posts by due date. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Does not meet requirements for full participation. Does not post by due date. |
||
| Second Response: Post to colleague’s main post that is reflective. |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Response exhibits critical thinking and application to practice settings. Responds to questions posed by faculty. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Response has some depth and may exhibit critical thinking or application to practice setting. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Response is on topic and may have some depth. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Response may not be on topic and lacks depth. |
||
| Second Response: Writing |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues. Response fully answers faculty questions, if posed. Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas. Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Communication is mostly professional and respectful to colleagues. Response mostly answers faculty questions, if posed. Provides opinions and ideas. Response is written in standard, edited English. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Response posed in the Blog may lack effective professional communication. Response somewhat answers faculty questions, if posed. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Responses posted in the Blog lack effective communication. Response to faculty questions is missing. |
||
| Second Response: Timely and full participation |
5 (8.33%) – 5 (8.33%)
Meets requirements for timely, full, and active participation. Posts by due date. |
4 (6.67%) – 4 (6.67%)
Meets requirements for full participation. Posts by due date. |
3 (5%) – 3 (5%)
Posts by due date. |
0 (0%) – 2 (3.33%)
Does not meet requirements for full participation. Does not post by due date. |
||
| Total Points: 60 | ||||||