Political Issues for Nursing
The American Nurses Association believes in advocacy as a stake of nursing. In order to ensure that the nurse profession is satisfactory, they advocate for certain policies such as healthy work environments, their communities, their remunerations rights, improved patient care, and their own welfare as well.
I focus on the enactment of healthy working environment policy for the nurses which plays a significant role in ensuring they provide quality health care. A positive environment provides the basis for the effective delivery of services by the nurses. This includes adequate staffing levels to ensure that nurses are not overworked and that they are loaded with manageable workloads for effectiveness. When a health facility has adequate nurses, it ensures that the nurses get enough time to attend to a single patient and pay the necessary attention to them. This ensures that a particular patient is monitored well while the nurse is not in haste to attend to many other patients awaiting (In Patton et al, 2015). It also ensures that they get enough leisure time to reenergize themselves hence preventing burnouts. This makes a nurse to organize themselves and enjoy their profession hence improving patient outcome.
A good communication network is also good to promote harmony and good flow of work. This is to ensure that then nurses are able to report any emergencies they may encounter within the work premises or with the patients in good time for action. Adequate ventilation also promotes a healthy working environment and ensures that the nurses operate under safe conditions free from possible spread of infectious diseases from the patients (Mason et al, 2013). A nurse cannot be comfortable while attending to a TB infected patient in a poorly-ventilated room, hence advocating for proper ventilation is essential. Thus, a healthy working environment is essential if the nurses are to perform optimally and improve patient outcome.
References
In Patton, R. M., In Zalon, M. L., In Ludwick, R., & American Nurses Association, (2015). Nurses making policy: From bedside to boardroom.
Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2013). Policy and politics in nursing and healthcare.