policy making

   Nurses have a pivotal role in policy making, but to effectively influence the process, nurses must be politically competent, by following a course of action that is based on data analysis and community values that address solutions to actual and potential problems (Mason, 2020). Advocacy is a role that a nurse must undertake to be politically active. Nurses can advocate for communities to be healthy as nurses have a professional and moral necessity to promote health and wellness, especially in underdeveloped areas. (Mason, 2020). Other key roles for nurses to have in the policy development model is to understand the levels of power and identify those who control resources for health services in their own organizations (Arabi, 2014).

   The policy I provided and have attended was with Senator Bernie Sanders with the HELP committee. His concerns were the health disparities in minorities and its correlation to the lack of minority health care providers. Nurses can bring their experience due to a large population of taking care of minorities in a hospital setting. Nurses can focus on what is contributing to their health disparities since the goal of nursing is to advocate not only high-quality care and good patient outcomes in a hospital setting but also in an outpatient setting. Some other points that nurses can also contribute are raising the question of, are the health disparities contributed by the low percentage of minority physicians taking care of minority groups? Or is it the socioeconomic disparities between ethnicities that contribute to higher percentages of illness and lower health outcomes.