Nursing Practice Influences and Nursing Role Advocacy - Essay Example

"Nursing Practice Influences and Nursing Role Advocacy" is an exceptional example of a paper on care.
The number of nurses continues to be on the rise in the world today. The rise has been due to the demand for their services because of increased healthcare needs. On the other hand, various nurses have come together to form professional organizations. The primary aim of such a move is to ensure that nurses speak with one voice. An example of such professional organizations is the International Council of Nurses. The professional bodies have been instrumental in influencing the health policy and advancing the profession of nursing (Benton, 2012). The paper seeks to explain how professional organizations are involved in political activities designed to strengthen professional nursing and influence health policy.

Professional organizations help in the coordination of nursing actions that in the end strengthen professional nursing and influence health policy. The services provided by are crucial in the healthcare setup. Moreover, nurses act like the only people that have advanced knowledge about client needs.  As a result, they are able a broad understanding of health needs by the profession. Nurses also understand how factors in the environment influence the health of the client and families (Benton, 2012). They also help in interpreting people needs and concerns of the societies. Therefore, it is clear that nurses have valuable information concerning the healthcare sector. Hence, bringing them together is instrumental in influencing policy in the national and global arena. As the author note “the majority of initial improvement can be traced to the organized commitment of individuals working under the auspices of nursing associations” (Benton, 2012, p. 1).

Secondly, professional organizations help in maintaining solidarity within the profession. Healthy organizations provide a base for shaping and achieving nursing goals. The unity that is also depicted by such organizations is crucial in ensuring nursing voices is listened to by key stakeholders. Additionally, the organizations need to bring all the views regarding policy debate and determine the specific goals to be achieved. Agreement of various groups helps in maintaining a standard approach and position in the public. As a result, a common stance in issues related to health helps in influencing the health policy.

Thirdly, the organizations also lay the foundation for the development of leadership skills. Most of the organization comprises a large group of nurses. Other organizations also appear as federations. Therefore, those that lead such bodies’ gains ability to give direction and empower those that make up the profession. These organizations also act as a foundation for professionals nurse to venture into politics. As they participate in political affairs, they provide their experience that is instrumental in formulating of healthcare policies.

The organizations also help nurses to adapt to changes in healthcare delivery in ongoing healthcare reforms. Some of the crucial changes that take place are because of health care reforms. As a result, professional organizations help in ensuring that nurses are up to the task by offering professional training and skills. Moreover, reforms have led to reduced funding to federal budgets as well as states, counties and local municipalities (Martin, 2014). The groups push the governments to come up with ways and processes that can provide high quality, lower cost and high patient satisfaction (Martin, 2014).

Additionally, various organizations have taken the role of being a patient advocate. The taking up of the role of advocacy has been due to the realization that weak patient care has been due to other factors not connected to nurses as individuals. For example, organizations have been pushing for the employment of more nurses to avert numerous adverse outcomes such as delay in response and communication. As the author notes, “Nurses must effectively champion meaningful patient-related issues at the national, state, and local levels” (Swiadek, 2009, p. 20). The advocacy has sometimes borne fruit with various governments coming up with policies of an increasing number of nurses.