As the first healthcare provider a patient will see in any typical situation, a nurse serves a critical role in the US Healthcare Delivery System. The legislative process provides the foundation and all the tools that a Nurse Practitioner will be able to utilize during the delivery of his/her service. Currently, conditions that nurses must practice under may not be optimal for both the Nurse and/or the patient, with respect to delivery and receipt of healthcare. However, nurses are increasing the role they play in the legislative process and the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act is likely to improve healthcare delivery.
Introduction
The US Health Care Delivery System is governed by federal and state legislation. Subsequently, the careers and practices of nursing professionals are impacted arguably to the same extent, as any stakeholder (i.e. Patient, Medical Doctor, Nurse), through any applicable changes in legislation. The nursing community must therefore ensure that they are represented during the shaping of any and all legislation. From an advanced practice perspective it appears that the Nursing body is extremely influential and ensures that the interests of Nurses are always considered during the legislative process for any applicable Healthcare related law (Barclay, 2012).
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"Legislative Process and Advanced Practice Nursing".
Impact of Legislative Process and Representation of Nurses
The most pressing issues that normally impact nurses are cost constraints and access to the patient, in an appropriate quality care setting (Barclay, 2012). Nurses must therefore deal with choosing to utilize the little tools they have to try to administer care to the patient, or to actively shape the change in the healthcare system itself.
Members of the Nursing community may be represented in the Advanced Practice of Registered Nurses (APRN), as one prominent collation. This organization believes strongly in the contribution that nurses have for improving healthcare series (Smith, et.al, 2012). Additionally, this group may lobby government agencies on behalf of issues that include; Interstate Nurse Licensure, Mandatory Overtime, Staffing, Safe Patient Handling, State, Insurance Exchanges, Title Protection, and Workplace Violence. Furthermore, Nurse State Legislators and Administrative Leaders will represent the interests of nurse practitioners in the form of state and/or federal congressmen/women and senators (Smith et. al, 2012). With respect to nurses, the ultimate goal of the APRN is to remove unnecessary practice restrictions in order to ensure Nurses can practice anywhere in the US, to the full extent of their license (Barclay, 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, legislation directly affects the ability of a nurse to deliver adequate care to the patient. Therefore, many nursing representative bodies seek further healthcare reform. The goal of these representative bodies is to ensure that the nurse will have all the necessary funding, staff, and additional adequate resource to deliver quality care to all patients. At this point in time it appears that the nurse does not have all the necessary tools to deliver the best primary care, and must therefore strive to help shape all healthcare related policies. However, much of the recent reforms enacted by the Affordable Care Act have not been implemented and therefore it will be interesting to see how the nurse’s role is impacted, upon full implementation.
