Summary of the Health Care Economic Issue

Dear sir! The issue that I bring to your attention in this letter is inadequate nursing staffing or nursing shortage in healthcare organizations in the state and USA in general. Current statistics shows that hospitals in America experience an acute shortage of nurses. The American Association of Nurses reports that America will require 275000 nurses annually from 2020 to 2030. In addition, more than 1 million nurses will be retiring in the next decade, worsening the shortage of nurses in the US’s healthcare system. The factors that contribute to nursing shortage can be addressed through policy initiatives. They include unhealthy working environments, high workload, inadequate number of nurses being trained by nursing institutions, and burnout. Nursing shortage affect the health of your constitutes, as seen from the increased medical errors, delays in care provision, increased healthcare costs, morbidity, and mortality rates (Haddad et al., 2022). Therefore, I request your support in lobbying the adoption of a policy that will increase the number of nursing students being trained in nursing institutions and demand health organizations to implement interventions that prioritize nurses’ needs.

Positive and Negative Outcomes

Addressing the issue of nursing shortage through a policy initiative will have significant benefits to communities and organizations. First, it will contribute to improved safety, quality, and efficiency of care that the communities receive. For example, adequate nursing staffing levels will translate into patient-centered nursing care, which minimizes safety issues such as nursing errors and delays in nursing care. Addressing the problem will also reduce the disease burden on the communities. This is seen from the reduction in overall healthcare costs, hospitalization stays, morbidity, and mortality (Amiri et al., 2020). The state currently spends significant resources in financing the healthcare systems and addressing community’s needs. Some of the resources are used in managing the negative consequences of inadequate staffing among nurses. However, addressing the problem through policy actions will benefit both health organizations and the state through the reduction in healthcare spending and resource utilization to address preventable problems arising from nursing shortage. The negative outcomes that will occur if there is failure to address the problem include increased workload for the few nursing staff, burnout, high turnover rates, and poor quality of care that is associated with medical errors, and elevated morbidity and mortality rates among hospitalized patients (Haddad et al., 2022).

Assessment 4 Instructions

Write a letter to an official in your state or local government. (Choose the individual in the level of government that will best address your issue). The purpose of this letter is to advocate for action with regards to your chosen health care environment issue.

Introduction

Note: Each assessment in this course builds upon the work you have completed in previous assessments. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in the order in which they are presented.

As health care leaders, it is important to understand strategies for advocating and lobbying elected officials. This can lead to the development of policies or laws that can help drive improved equity and outcomes for all participants in the health care environment as well as a more sustainable financial future.

Background and Context

As a master’s-level health care practitioner, you may be expected to implement plans to ensure that initiatives designed to take advantage of economic opportunities for the organization are rolled out successfully and can be sustained over multiple years. Additionally, it is important to be able to envision how an initiative could be implemented in different contexts and for different purposes to ensure the investment remains a viable and positive asset to your organization or care setting.

As a master’s-level practitioner, you will often be challenged to influence the health care environment in a variety of ways. This influence can occur on a micro-level (implementing change on your unit, institution, community, or local organizations) or at a macro level (implementing change via state or federal regulations and policy). One way you can influence the health care environment is by lobbying an elected official at the local, state, or national level to adopt policies or legislation that would support positive economic and health outcomes for patients, practitioners, and organizations within the health care environment.

Instructions

For this assessment, you will develop a letter to an official in your state or local government (choose the individual in the level of government that will best address your issue). The purpose of this letter is to advocate for action with regards to your chosen health care environment issue. Remember, when writing the letter, you must use your personal address and telephone number unless you are exclusively representing a group or your organization.

Be sure to address each main point. Review the assessment instructions and scoring guide, including performance-level descriptions for each criterion, to ensure you understand the work you will be asked to complete and how it will be assessed. In addition, note the requirements for document format and length and for supporting evidence.

Overall, your assessment submission will be assessed on the following criteria:

Summarize the health care economic issue that you are addressing.

Keep this brief but try to include details about how the issue is currently impacting the elected officials’ constituents.

Explain the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and the negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.

Tailor this messaging to focus on the impacts in the communities and organizations that are relevant to the elected official you are writing to.

Summarize key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.

Cite at least five current, scholarly sources that support your argument and help provide the elected official (who may not have a detailed knowledge of the health care environment) with an understanding of the issues, changes, or actions that you are proposing to drive improved outcomes.

Identify the impact your issue has on health care institutions and health care providers at the local community, state, and national levels.

Make sure to include information from both a health care and an economic perspective. An elected official may be more responsive to one perspective than another.

Incorporate ethical, cultural, and diversity principles when picking resources and making recommendations for change in your assessment.

Explain how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue.

Think about how your experiences (the experiences can be personal, professional, or from your team’s perspective or experience) affect how you have planned for the resources needed to implement your desired changes or actions. How did this impact your approach to conducting a risk analysis on the project?

Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly communication standards.

Remember to conclude your letter with a summary of your position on the issue and a compelling reason that the elected official should act in your favor and support your issue or initiative.

Additional Requirements

Audience: Make sure you are addressing your letter to an actual local or state official.

For most states, you can use the following resource:

Open States. (n.d.). Find your legislators. https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

For local officials, search your city’s government website for officials and their positions.

Length of Submission: 1–2 double spaced pages. Your letter needs to be succinct and persuasive.

Number of References: Cite at least five sources of evidence to support your identification of the gap. This could be public health data, a peer-reviewed journal article, or another scholarly source.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Note: As you revise your writing, check out the resources listed on the Writing Center’s Writing Support page.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Analyze the effects of financial and economic factors (such as cost-benefit, supply and demand, return on investment, and risks) in a health care system on patient care, services offered, and organizational structures and operation.

Summarize the health care economic issue that you are addressing.

Competency 2: Develop ethical and culturally equitable solutions to economic problems within a health care organization in an effort to improve the quality of care and services offered.

Explain the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.

Competency 3: Justify the qualitative and quantitative information used to guide economic decision making to stakeholders and colleagues.

Competency 4: Develop ethical and culturally equitable economic strategies to address dynamic environmental forces and ensure the future security of an organization’s resources and its ability to provide quality care.

Explain how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue.

Competency 5: Produce clear, coherent, and professional written work, in accordance with Capella writing standards.

Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.

Lobbying for Change Scoring Guide

CriteriaNon-performanceBasicProficientDistinguishedSummarize the health care economic issue that you are addressing.Does not provide any type of summary of the health care economic issue that you are addressing.Provides an unclear or incomplete summary of the health care economic issue that you are addressing.Summarizes the health care economic issue that you are addressing.Summarizes the health care economic issue that you are addressing. Notes how the issue is currently impacting the constituents of the elected official that the letter is addressed to.Explain the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.Does not describe positive and negative outcomes in general terms.Describes positive and negative outcomes in general terms. The relevance to the issue and taking action to address the issue of these outcomes is unclear and lacking in detail.Explains the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.Explains the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed. Targets tone and content of the explanation to the elected official the letter is addressed to.Summarize key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.Does not provide any kind of summary of key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.Provides an incomplete or unclear summary of key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.Summarizes key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.Summarizes key information from at least five scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue; the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels; and proposed changes or actions to address the issue. Notes ethical, cultural, and diversity principles that were used when making the recommendations for the proposed changes.Explain how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue.Does not list personal, professional, and organizational experiences that informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue.Lists personal, professional, and organizational experiences that informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue, but there is a general lack of detail provided.Explains how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue.Explains how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working toward addressing the economic issue. Relates a succinct story from experiences in personal health care practice to illustrate the planning and analysis approach taken.Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.Does not convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and writing scholarly standards.Conveys purpose, in an appropriate tone or style. Clear, effective communication is inhibited by insufficient supporting evidence or minimal adherence to applicable writing standards.Conveys purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards. Attempts to apply APA style and formatting.Conveys clear purpose, in a tone and style well-suited to the intended audience. Supports assertions, arguments, and conclusions with relevant, credible, and convincing evidence. Exhibits strict and nearly flawless adherence to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards, including APA style and formatting.