Political Competence
TASk:
Make a peer response or review on the essay below
- Length: A minimum of 250 words, not including references
- Citations: At least one high-level scholarly reference in APA per post from within the last 5 years if indicated by APA 7th ed requirements.
Political Competence in Nursing is the ability of a healthcare provider to understand, engage, and involve others in change that aims to generate policy or change the existing one. Shalonda et al., 2019, states that Political Competence is directly related to advocacy of health promotion through policy creation or change. Political competence involves public health and the desire to make a difference and change or challenge the political system using critical thinking, negotiation, and leadership to inspire others while creating strategies to improve the profession, the customers, the healthcare system, and the community.
The American Association of Nurse Practitioners invites all its members, including student members, to participate in advocacy through its Political Action Committee (PAC). This Committee allows members of the AANP to exhibit interest and provide support to laws and political candidates that share the vision of the AANP. The AANP exercises political competence by empowering Nurse Practitioners (NPs) all around the country, working as one, removing healthcare practice barriers, securing fair pay and services for NPs.
On the federal level, AANP is currently advocating on gaining support for changes to federal law in changing the rules for the Medicare Shared Services Program as current regulations do not allow NPs to develop their Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) even though The Affordable Care Act recognizes NPs as authorized professionals eligible to participate in ACOs. ACOs are models designed to improve access, cost, and quality to care (AANP.org, 2022). This is important because Medicare has contradictory regulations that become barriers to NPs’ practice.
Another example of nursing leadership applying political competence is the advocacy by the AANP-PAC calling for Congress to approve legislation that would authorize hospice care programs to approve eligibility orders given by NPs to Medicare recipients (AANP, 2022).
References
AANP.org. (2022). Advocacy Center: Federal Issue briefs. Retrieved from https://www.aanp.org/advocacy/advocacy-center
Shalonda Estelle, B. H., Todd, A. T., Johnson, K. E., Gaskamp, C. D., Guillet, N., & Murray-Chavez, J. (2019). Public Health Policy Simulation. Journal of Nursing Education, 58(3), 178-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20190221-10
