Healthcare Bill

Policy Brief: Detailed Directions
As stated in The Essentials, healthcare policy can facilitate or hinder healthcare delivery, and legislation directly affects the environment in which advanced practice nurses (APN) practice. APNs are called to participate in the legislative process, influencing policy development to better meet the needs of providers and care recipients. Ultimately, MSN and DNP education have two outcomes related to healthcare policy and advocacy: (a) examine and evaluate the policy process and (b) engage in political activism as it relates to ensuring healthcare policy reduces disparities, improves access and quality, reduces costs, and promotes equity.
This assignment focuses on the student’s ability to understand and evaluate policy processes and make decisions on whether certain policies achieve the goals outlined above. From there, graduates can transform this knowledge into political activism: Developing a policy brief is one way to accomplish this. By utilizing this strategy, graduates can ensure that they have a seat at the table when decisions about their practice are being made.
Policy briefs are succinct documents that are easy to review and work to persuade a chosen audience to support or remove support for the development of a particular policy. The following steps outline what you need to accomplish for this assignment. Additional questions are wel- come and should be posted in the Course Q&A. Point allocations and additional grading con- siderations are provided on the rubric below the directions.
Step 1:
Bill Selection. Choose a state or federal-level healthcare bill that addresses a problem that you are interested in seeing solved. You may use a state-level bill if your state’s legislative session is currently in progress. Otherwise, you must choose a federal bill from the 116th Congress (Jan. 3, 2019 to Jan. 2021). The bill must still be pending. You may not select a bill that has al- ready passed both the Senate and the House or one that is waiting on signa- ture from President. You may use a bill that has only passed one of the con- gressional branches—either the House or the Senate, but not both. It is rec- ommended that you use congress.gov, senate.gov, house.gov or the Thomas Library of Congress to search for a health-related bill to analyze for this brief.
Executive Summary. As noted in the peer-reviewed articles on developing a policy brief that are included in your Required Resources, you should begin your brief with an executive summary. This section answers the question, “What is this brief about?” This will be your audience’s initial contact with your brief so you want to make sure it is compelling so that they continue to read.
In 1-2 paragraphs, you should (a) explain the issue, (b) address it’s impact, (c) express why its timely to address this issue now, and (d) introduce what potential good would result from fixing the problem. Support this section with relevant facts, figures, statistics, and costs as applicable.
Step 2:
Step 3:
Background and Significance. Use compelling facts to describe the healthcare problem that is central to your paper. Do not discuss potential solutions, including the bill you chose, and just focus on the issue (opioid use, mental health, breastfeeding, etc.).
Include appropriate level (state or federal) facts, numbers, figures, research, and statistics to support the impact of the problem on each of the following: (a) health, (b) the economy, (c) healthcare (d) nursing practice or advanced nursing practice, (e) the environment, (f) society, and (g) human rights (eg, ethical factors and theories)
This section should paint the picture of why this issue needs to be cared about.
Policy Option/Position Statement. This section has two components: (a) a an analysis of past and present efforts and (b) your policy recommendation.
First, discuss what legislative efforts have attempted to address this in the past, including any legislation that is currently in effect. Address why each those efforts have or are falling short. Use evidence from the literature to support why these efforts were/are inadequate.
Second, introduce your policy recommendation using it’s bill number and title (if applicable). Address why it is the most appropriate solution compared to previous policy, current strategies, other potential courses of action, etc. Support why your recommended policy is a superior solution with evidence from the literature as well.
Include a working link to your bill at the end of this section.
Evidence-Based Strategies. This section is the central aspect of this as- signment and requires you to use evidence to analyze the effectiveness, effi- ciency, and equity (three Es) of the bill you selected.
Select three strategies that are proposed in the bill and discuss what current research states about their ability to be (a) effective, (b) efficient, and (c) equi- table. Each strategy should be analyzed separately. It is possible that one of the three Es will not apply to each and every strategy. You need to address as many of the three Es for each strategy as possible, and all three Es must be addressed by the end of this section. See Help with the Three Es in this unit’s resources.
The ability to perform objective analysis is key to quality policy evaluation. The conclusions presented in this section should be the result of synthesizing research findings from the literature. It is not meant to reflect your opinion. The bill itself cannot be used for support for any of the three Es.
Preparing for the Opposition. Identify and summarize literature that the opposition may be basing their stance on. Use evidence to counter their po- sition.
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Step 9:
Recommendations for Action. To reduce bias, acknowledge at least one (1) strategy that needs revision (eg, not effective, efficient, or equitable) or diffi- culties in implementation that you foresee. Offer potential evidence-based changes or solutions for your selection instead of avoiding the limitations of the bill. Be sure to summarize the evidence that supports your conclusions and provide citations in this section.
Additional Resources. The policy brief is meant to be, well, brief. Choose 3-5 additional resources you would like to share with your audience for further reading on the bill and/or issue. You must explain the value of each to your audience, and provide working links to the resources. This could even in- clude links to related briefs or statements from organizations that you consid- er your ally in this endeavor. Submit this as an appendix. You may format as you see fit.
Reference List. There should be at least 10 references published within the last 5 years on your list. Seven (7), at minimum, must be peer-reviewed ref- erences. Additional references types may include current events and rele- vant publications from corporation websites. In-text citations and reference list entries should be presented in APA format.
Language and Style Considerations: Although the formatting of assignment strays from APA (exceptions discussed below), the student should maintain their professional voice throughout, continuing to avoid the use of I and other personal pronouns and refraining from using colloqui- alisms and unprofessional language.
The policy brief document itself may have visual interest as you see fit. DO:
• Use bullets, paneling, bolding, underline, color, boxes, photos, and highlighting strategically.
• Single space if you wish so long as the document is easy to read.
• Continue to follow expected grammar, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviation, and
numeral guidelines outlined in the APA manual.
• Make sure in-text citations and the reference list also follow APA format.
• Order appendices according to APA format.
DONT:
• Let the styling overshadow you message. Find a balance. • Include an APA formatted title page.
• Forget to maintain your professional voice.
See examples of policy briefs from professional organizations and previous students in Unit 3 resources for ideas regarding appropriate styling as well as examples of well developed and
supported content.

*If you are not using photos that you own, please use the advanced search feature in Google Images to filter results by pictures that are free for use or sharing and/or give credit to the source of your photos.
Policy Brief: Rubric
/2 Executive Summary. Answers the question what is this brief about in 1-2 para graphs.
/5 Background and Significance. Description of healthcare problem, supported by facts. Focused on the health-related issue and not the legislation or other potential solutions.
/4 Policy Option/Position Statement. Addresses the appropriateness of previous and current strategies to resolve the chosen issue. Introduces and supports a new solution in the form of a healthcare bill.
/6 Evidence-based Strategies. Discusses three (3) selected strategies from the pro posed legislation and evaluates their ability to be effective, efficient, and equitable.
/2 Recommendations for Action. Discusses and provides supporting data for at least one (1) limitation and offers a potential revision or solution.
/2 Preparing for the Opposition. Uses evidence to counter the opposition’s position. /2 Additional Resources. Discusses 3-5 additional resources for their stakeholder to
review on the issue.
/2 Language and Styling. Language maintains professional voice. Visual interest is used well to enhance the message of the policy brief without being overdone or making the document difficult to read.
TOTAL POINTS /25
Additional Notes:
• Headings should be presented in the same order in which they are presented in the rubric.
• The assignment should be between 5-6 pages in length (excluding the reference pages and any appendices) and should have a minimum of ten (10) references, seven (7) of which must be peer reviewed. References should be timely: published within the previous five (5) years.
• For submission, each assignment should be “named” according to the file naming policy of the course.
• Each assignment should be submitted to turnitin.com. Submit appendices to Turnitin. Re- member to remove the reference pages prior to Turnitin submission.
• Submission Instructions: Each assignment should be submitted in PDF format to the appro- priate assignment area. There will be one document uploaded to the Assignment section.
• Up to 20% of the total points for this assignment may be deducted for an overall lack of schol- arship, to include APA errors, grammatical errors, incorrect spelling, over the page limit, etc.
• You may see a resubmit button. Please understand that course policy does not permit re submission of assignments; however, we have included this re-submission option for inciden- tal mishaps occurring prior to assignment due date, such as someone forgetting to convert their assignments to pdf format, need to edit/revise paper based on Turnitin report, etc.
• Assignments not submitted properly will not be graded and will receive a 10% deduction. If this occurs, students will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to resubmit correctly.