Policy Analysis to Impact Population Health
DISCUSSION
PURPOSE
The purpose of this discussion is to analyze a health policy related to the selected population and practice problem.
This week, you discovered that the focus of healthcare policy has a growing emphasis on population health outcomes. As a DNP-prepared nurse, you must be able to critically appraise healthcare policies to influence policy decisions at every level.
INSTRUCTIONS
Review the lesson and readings about Bardach’s eightfold steps to policy analysis, especially in the Chapter 4 Policy Analysis section of the Patton text. Then, select a healthcare policy that impacts, or has the potential to impact, the practice problem and population selected in previous weeks of this course.
You can select a broad, national health policy (i.e., Accountable Care Act) or one that is specified for a specific health issue (i.e., Minority Diabetes Initiative Act).
Critically appraise the healthcare policy using Bardach’s eightfold steps to policy analysis:
- Define the problem
- Assemble evidence
- Develop alternatives
- Select criteria to evaluate the alternatives
- Project outcomes
- Analyze trade-offs
- Make decisions
- Communicate results
