Chamberlain College of Nursing - NR 506NR506- WEEK 7- SUMMARY OF HEALTHCARE CONCERN. Healthcare Concern Summary Presentation: Childhood Obesity Chamberlain College of Nursing Healthcare PolicyFull Presentation with Notes.

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Chamberlain College of Nursing - NR 506NR506- WEEK 7- SUMMARY OF HEALTHCARE CONCERN Healthcare Concern Summary Presentation: Childhood Obesity Chamberlain College of Nursing Healthcare Policy Impa... ct of Healthcare Policy on the Nursing Profession It offers a general guide that is used in the development of the nursing policy and regulations. It addresses numerous fundamental issues regarding different groups of the society. It covers both short term and long term policy issues regarding the approaches to be used by health professionals, including nurses. It covers diverse areas including public health, insurance, personal health, and pharmaceuticals among others. It offers a guide for the nurses in relation to the appropriate approaches of healthcare delivery. It affects the future of the nursing profession as changes in the healthcare policy influences the nurses directly. It is also affected by the nurses as their work has a direct impact on the success or failure of the policy. It is the responsibility of the nurses to ensure that their facet of the policy gets implemented successfully. Importance of Advocacy in Advanced Practice Nurse’s Role Advocacy refers to the act of supporting a proposal or a cause. Nurses are central in advocacy, and they can advocate for a variety of issues. Advocacy is at the core of the nursing profession and it is inscribed in the nursing policies throughout the world. Advocacy promotes the needs of the nurses in policy making on issues relating to: Service delivery Patient outcomes Development of the nursing workforce, and Other issues that have an impact on the profession. Nurses also have a role to play in ensuring that the needs of the patients and community are advocated for. Nurses deal with the community and the patients closely and regularly, which gives them an edge in understanding various issues that affect these groups. Advocacy requires influential people who are also experts in their fields, and this makes nurses ideal to contribute on advocacy matters relating to the health sector. Impact of Healthcare Policy on Population Health The healthcare policy has a massive impact on the health of the populous. The policy offer guidelines on a variety of issues that have an impact on the current and future health issues. The healthcare policy ensures that there is equality for all patients. It is a requirement of healthcare policies to give guidelines and mandate to the health professionals to care for patients. It requires that patients be treated with dignity and non-restrictiveness due to economic and social status. It promotes equality in the access to healthcare for the population, which ultimately promotes a healthy community. The policy promotes human dignity through the maintenance of the patient’s independence, privacy, as well as, respect. It is required that the health professionals abide by the wishes of the patients in regard to their choices on healthcare. It is also required for the healthcare professionals to remind the patients that they have the overall control over their care and bodies. The policy also indicates the techniques that can be applied in the implementation of advocacy for the community. Healthcare Concern The healthcare concern is the childhood obesity, which has become a common problem in the recent past (Buttriss, 2017). A child who is obese at the early years of their lives is likely to continue being obese during their adolescent and adult years (Sjöberg, Moraeus, Yngve, Poortvliet, Al-Ansari, & Lissner, 2012). Parents should be extremely vigilant in order to notice the health status of their children in order to monitor obesity. The incidences that need to be monitored include high blood pressure, overweight, and development of some forms of cancer. Obesity among the children is also a common issue that causes a sense of low self-esteem, which could develop into other psychological problems. The different issues that have led to the development of the problem include the diet of the children. Parents should also be careful about the types of food that they eat in front of their children. It is common for children to copy what the adults do, and this requires the parents to act in a way that if copied will not be detrimental. Impact of the Concern on the Population Group and Community Childhood obesity has impact on both the children who are affected, as well as, the community in general. Obese children experience difficulties while on the different areas including school, playgrounds, and within the general community. Obese children also have lower self-esteem compared to their normal agemates and as a result, they grow up with different psychological problems (Lawrence, 2017). Obesity as a concern also impacts on the community as it takes the entire community to ensure that the problems is dealt with. Community members have to act together in order to fight the obesity epidemic. The community has the responsibility of ensuring that the environment in which the children live makes it easier for them to deal with the obesity problem. Obese children face hardships including discrimination, and it is the responsibility of the community to make sure that they do not face such problems. The community must also have the ideal food products offered in the shops and convenience stores in order to deal with the problem of obesity. Proposed Solution to the Healthcare Concern Parents are the role models of their children, and as such, they form the first level of solution to the obesity problem. The proposed solution entails a number of factors including physical activity, nutrition education, and proper diet for the children. Physical activity entails ensuring that the children get engaged in outdoor games and exercises that will promote their physical wellness (Bento & Dias, 2017). Proper diet for the children is critical in getting rid of the obesity problem. The parents have to ensure that they promote nutrition in the types of food they offer their children. They should also ensure that they do not only purchase packaged and processed foods that have low nutritional value for the children. Nutritional education should also be promoted both at schools and homes. The nutritional educators assist in the eradication of the problem through the provision of insight on the matter. They also organize forums that offer education that assists in equipping the teachers and the pupils on the available healthy choices at home and school. Slides Provided to the Elected Official The slides presented to the elected official had a variety of issues per below: Introduction to Obesity in Children Global and United States statistics on child obesity Current solutions that others are striving to apply in relation to the children obesity problem Proposed solutions to the current problem. Ideal area of implementation for the initial trial program. Expected results after the implementation of the proposed problems. Elected Official The elected official is Pamela Yeung and she is an elected School Board member. She was elected mainly due to her contribution within the education sector as she has been an advocate of excellent education for all. She has previously promoted equal opportunity to education, learning of new ideas and transformation of the world. She has also contributed immensely on the role of society in the moral up-bringing and wellbeing of the children. She has been an advocate of education, which is a critical tool in opening up bridges that assist in identifying solutions for the existing community problems. The meeting was held on the 29th of May, 2018 between 1000hrs and 1100hrs at her office. The materials used in the presentation included a PowerPoint presentation and physical handouts indicating facts about the obesity problem within the community. The response to the presentation was positive and she also highlighted on different areas that she believed would work and those that required slight amendments. Responses of the Elected Official The elected official supported the idea of having an advocacy campaign aimed at the child obesity problem. She highlighted that she had also been involved in various projects before, which also aimed at ensuring that the health of the children was addressed. She indicated that there is a close relationship between community health and education. She also stated that majority of the community problems that people experience are mainly due to their lack of proper information. She indicated that through her position as a school board member, it was possible to advocate for the proposed changes that included nutritional education. She also indicated the necessity to expand the advocacy campaign to cover wider areas since the problem was universal. She indicated that the proposed solution of physical activity had been covered in the school setting as they offered physical education, but at home children had reduced activity. She advocated for an inclusive approach to seeking a solution, which would involve the community, parents, children, and children health experts. New Insights Gained Regarding the Healthcare Concern It became evident through the meeting that the problem of childhood obesity had an extreme economic aspect. It is the different processed and fast foods industries that fuel contribute majorly to the problem. The elected official indicated that as much as regulations were necessary and were in place, these industries are major sources of income for administrations. It becomes difficult to create a restriction on some of the issues relating to these industries due to the risk of losing revenue. Therefore, it was necessary to include other players within the industry in order to ensure that the existing problem was well understood and not ignored due to other benefits. The elected official also insisted on the importance of education at the community level to ensure that the people had proper understanding of the problem. The education would also ensure that the people also understand the available solutions, and the ultimate way of solving the problem in the long term. New Insights Regarding the Proposed Solution The meeting also resulted in the identification of additional issues relating to the proposed solutions. It was necessary to have a transformation in the food culture within the society: People have turned towards packaged, processed and fast foods, that are easy to make. Society has reduced its concentration on the nutritional value of the food products that they consume. The problem needs to be solved through a multifaceted approach that will also involve community education. The nutritional aspect of the solution is also multifaceted and requires the involvement of various departments. The parents need to be educated on how to ensure that the nutritional value of the food that they make is of utmost quality (Guha, 2018). The teachers must also be engaged in order to incorporate the same in the curriculum to ensure that the children understand several aspects of healthy eating. It should also involve relevant policy makers within the community as they can develop policies focused on the reduction of unhealthy food products in the markets. Revisions to the Presentation to the Elected Official The revisions that would be necessary to the presentation would cover various aspects including: Adding extra information on the facts of the problem from other parts of the world and not limited to the United States. Offering specific area where the implementation would begin prior to possible expansion over time. Adding a cost aspect to the proposal, albeit this would be rough figures, but after engaging other experts in the field. Adding information and new insights gained from the meeting with the elected official Adding information of what has worked in other parts of the world. The approach used for the presentation would also require adjustment in order to incorporate additional use of technology. The meeting could be set up using skype call due to the tight schedule of the official, which may make it difficult to set up a physical meeting (Johannesson, 2016). There would also be a need to request the official to invite other influential members that would be useful in bolstering the success of the proposed solutions. Insights Gained about Healthcare Policy and Nursing Profession The meeting made it evident that the healthcare policy is not an independent facet, but rather it relies on other public policies. The healthcare policy has to be developed in conjunction with policies touching on environment and economy among others. The community must be involved in the policy development process as it promotes its success due to the community support. The nursing profession is an integral part of the healthcare policy, both as advocates and implementers. There is need to have more involvement from the nursing profession on the development of healthcare policies as they have a closer interaction with the community. The nurses can also contribute to the society by acting as educators in the local schools. Participation as educators will break the stereotypes where nurses are only seen in hospitals and encourage people to have preventive approach on healthcare. Possible Future Opportunities to be an Advocate Advocacy can be described as an ethic of the nursing profession, and it is at the core of the practice Nurses have numerous opportunities to act as advocates for the patients, community, policy change, nursing profession, and for their personal issues. Advocacy for patients can be done through numerous ways including: Protecting them from harm Communicating the preferences of the patients Fostering collaborative measures Offering essential information for the patients to make informed decisions Supporting the decisions of the patients regarding their choices and care Advocacy for the community also takes various approaches that include: Taking advantage of the position and expertise to persuade the people in authority about economic, health and educational matters. Sharing different issues, such as, the cost of health services with the community leaders and elected officials Offering information about available community resources; Improving the access to care within the school systems in the community Providing expertise in public forums in relation to the expansion of the healthcare infrastructure within the community Possible Future Opportunities to be an Advocate cont.. Advocacy for policy change is also an opportunity for a nurse as the expertise carries significant weight and can participate through: Learning about the existing process of legislation Participation in the legislative action alerts Engaging and meeting elected officials in relation to policy development Providing expertise through testimonies during the policy development process and decision making Taking advantage of the profession’s name in the community and pushing for changes and contributing as the policy makers respect the contributions of experts Advocacy for the nursing profession can take place in various formal and informal approaches, which include: Acting collectively with other nurses in order to push for improvement of the work setting and profession Describing the profession’s strengths and the positive impact on the outcomes of the patients Giving support to the vital role played by the nurse educators Obtaining training and advancing in education in order to help lead in the advocacy efforts within the profession. Possible Future Opportunities to be an Advocate cont.. Advocacy for personal issues as an individual and a nurse can also be done through: Becoming a member of key committees within the profession and advocating for personal benefits Participating in activities, which have an influence on the decision making processes within the workplace Mentoring new nurses for the betterment of the profession, and also as a way of ensuring personal growth and satisfaction. Collaborating with leaders in the nursing profession in order to push for positive change that affects the profession and nursing conduct. Advocacy for the changes at the workplace is also a critical issue for the nurse advocate and can be done through: Highlighting the issues that are working and those that require improvement at the workplace. Researching on the way that other work environments work and borrowing any relevant points from such places Influencing other nurses towards ensuring that the required changes get implemented Revisions to the Proposed Solution Since the identified problem is a multifaceted issue, the solutions offered will entail the involvement of a wide range of people. Revising the existing solutions will include the engagement of the solutions proposed by the elected official. It will include: Engagement of community members when developing the proposals. Encouragement of the parents to understand the overall effect that obesity has on the quality and future life of their children. Inclusion of the identified nursing organization in order to ensure that their potential contributions to the issue may require some adjustments to the solutions. Professional Nursing Organization The selected nursing organization is the Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN). It is an organization whose membership is mainly the pediatric nurses. Its members also engage in education and research issues relating to the health of infants and children. It has been in existence since the mid 1980s. They continuously push in order to meet the needs that their members have in addition to promoting the improvement of global pediatric standards. They also get engaged in advocating for the pediatric issues that require integration into the healthcare policy. It is the ideal organization because the problem identified has to do with the health of the children. It will be possible for the members of the organization to offer support for the implementation of the policy and also contribute their expertise. Since the organization has a national membership, its representatives have a wide range of ideas advised by their different engagements with people in different regions. conclusion The healthcare concern selected is the issue of childhood obesity. It is an adverse problem as children suffering from it may continue being obese throughout their lives, and it could also lead to other psychological and lifestyle ailments. It is a problem that is spreading adversely among the children throughout the United States and globally. It requires a multifaceted approach to dealing with it, which will involve the engagement of nutritionists, educators, parents, and other stakeholders. The proposed solutions include: Involvement of parents in ensuring they feed their children healthy food. Engagement of the nutritional educators to teach parents, teachers and community members on the issue of childhood obesity. Promote physical activity among the children while they are at school or at home. The selected official is Pamela Yeung who is an elected school board member. The proposed solution was presented to her and she offered support and introduced several potential improvements. It is expected that the implementation of the proposed solutions will promote the successful reduction in the problem of childhood obesity. References Bento, G., & Dias, G. (2017). The importance of outdoor play for young children's healthy development. Porto Biomedical Journal, 2(5), 157-160. Buttriss, J. L. (2017). Childhood obesity still rising. Nutrition Bulletin, 42(1), 2-5. Guha, S. (2018). Healthy children: How parents, teachers, and community can help to prevent obesity in children. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Johannesson, G. (2016). Presentation skills for oral presentations. Acta Ophthalmologica, 94. doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-3768.2016.0053 Lawrence, J. (2017). Childhood obesity. British Journal of Perioperative Nursing (United Kingdom), 15(2), 84-90. Sjoberg, A., Moraeus, L., Yngve, A., Poortvliet, E., Al-Ansari, U., & Lissner, L. (2011). Overweight and obesity in a representative sample of schoolchildren - Exploring the urban-rural gradient in Sweden. Obesity Reviews, 12(5), 305-314. [Show More]

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