Policy-Priority Selection (graded)

Policy-Priority Selection (graded) Identify your selected healthcare policy priority and discuss the rationale for your selection. Describe the model of policy making that you feel would be best applied to your policy issue and the rationale for selecting this model. Identify your selected healthcare policy priority and discuss the rationale for your selection. Describe the model of policy making that you feel would be best applied to your policy issue and the rationale for selecting this model. The healthcare policy priority I selected to explore is an environmental issue. I would like to see the elimination of using disposable plastic bags from stores and enforce the use of reusable shopping bags. Disposable plastic bags are one of the leading sources of pollution in our environment and are extremely wasteful. Simple, small changes in the habits of consumers can save tons of plastic from polluting the oceans and eliminate a percentage of human's reliance on oil. I would like to see this nationwide, however, for this project I am going to start small with either my township or county. Places like San Francisco and California effectively banned the use of disposable plastic bags in 2015, and have had much success. Citizens will either use reusable shopping bags or pay $0.10 for paper bags. Recently, this past November there was an initiative on the ballot in San Francisco to either strike down this ban or keep it and the voters chose to keep it. Conversely, the state of Michigan just passed a law banning the banning of plastic bags! The way that similar legislation has been introduced throughout the world is a phased approach, or incrementalism. This is a big change in the way people are used to shopping. I think that setting in the period of 6 months businesses can begin to phase out the use of bags, provide paper or reusable bags for a small cost and the consumer can adjust. Once the habit has been made, one wont know the difference. It will be important to educate the public to the potential risks of reusable bags and how to properly maintain them. The cross contamination of meat and vegetables is a risk. A specific bag should be maintained for meat and a separate one for vegetables. Bags should be laundered periodically to prevent accumulation of bacterial and food borne illnesses. Incrementalism would give people time to adjust to the change. It will also allow consumers to purchase reusable bags and change their ways. Hopefully, going slowly will allow for the phase out of the unnecessary item. A challenge will be that peoples jobs may be on the line in factories that produce the bags. In our current political climate, environmental protections are seen as "job-killing" and it is hard to steer for a healthy population and environment. Many times, people are aware of the economical and environmental reasons for the ban but still prefer the conveinece of plastic (Joseph, Kumar, Majgi, Kumar, & Prahalad, 2016). This is another reason I think slowly phasing in reusable and out disposable will work better. I live in a rural county and I may meet resistance. However, I am in the neighboring county to the city of Cleveland and I may have more success in a more urban environment. When I begin to research whom to contact, I will look at both options. Reference Joseph, N., Kumar, A., Majgi, S. M., Kumar, G. S., & Prahalad, R. Y. (2016). Usage of plastic bags and health hazards: A study to assess awareness level and perception about legislation among a small population of Mangalore City. Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research, 10(4), 1-4. doi:10.7860/JCDR/2016/16245.7529 Hi Michelle: This is a great topic and I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I, too, live near Cleveland and Lorain County. From what I have read, Ohio is one of the leading states with this epidemic. My brother-in-law is a paramedic, firefighter in a neighboring county and they have a Narcan wall, where they save all of the empty boxes. He says at least once a shift, they are called to an overdose. This topic to me is overwhelming. It's systemic and ubiquitous, I wouldn't know where to start. You're right though, it needs to be addressed in a change of policy at many levels. In the discussion for week one, I discussed physicians ordering pain medication on the basis of pain score and how that can be troubling. Ever since medicine started viewing pain as the fifth vital sign and having hospital satisfaction rates and compensation based on people’s perception of pain, I think made the situation worse. Often, guidelines state that a patient can be treated with an opioid with a pain scale rating greater than 3 or 4 (Dijk, Kappen, Schuurmans, & Wijck, 2015). Recommendations say that these medications should be saved for a rating greater than 8 (Dijk et al., 2015). Most patients with a score of less than 8 find the pain manageable, however they are being offered and given opioids at far lower scores, increasing the possible overuse of the medication (Dijk et al., 2015). This doesn't necessarily cause the heroin epidemic, but if doctors are over prescribing the medication and not seeking other ways to help patients alleviate pain, it doesn't help. There are so many angles at which this topic can be approached. Reference Dijk, J. M., Kappen, T. H., Schuurmans, M. J., & Wijck, A. M. (2015). The Relation Between Patients' NRS Pain Scores and Their Desire for Additional Opioids after Surgery. Pain Practice, 15(7), 604-609. doi:10.1111/papr.12217 ____________________ Michelle Card Policy-Priority Selection The health care priority that I would like to focus on for this class is related to the overdose crisis in Lorain County, Ohio. This is far more reaching than just Ohio, but for the intention of this Show More The health care priority that I would like to focus on for this class is related to the overdose crisis in Lorain County, Ohio. This is far more reaching than just Ohio, but for the intention of this class and this assignment I tightened the scope of my focus to a local county in my state. I have worked much of my career with patients in Lorain County, Ohio. We hear about drug overdose on a daily basis. Parents overdosing in the car or at home with their children. These kids having to call 911 to save the life of a parent. It is sad. It is out of control. Law enforcement has been brought to the forefront as first responders to treat the public with nasal narcan. Law enforcement seizures of drugs has increased in Ohio from 110 in 2013 to 3882 in 2015 and in the same period of time overdose deaths have increased from 84 to 1155 (“2015 Ohio”, 2015). This is staggering. More needs to be done on the local level to meet people where they are, keep the conversation at the forefront, and offer easy help. In 2015 overdose related deaths became the leading cause of injury-related deaths in Ohio which exceeded motor vehicle accidents (“2015 Ohio”, 2015). This is a trend that began to show momentum in 2007. The overdose death rate has increase by 20.5% between 2014 and 2015 alone (“2015 Ohio”, 2015). Fentanyl related overdoses have more than doubled in the last year and many of the victims were unaware the fentanyl was combined with their other drug (“2015 Ohio”, 2015). Heroin-related deaths have also increased in the last year. Heroin was involved in 46.7% of all overdose deaths in 2015 (“2015 Ohio”, 2015). The model of policy making that I think would be applied the best to this issue would be the stage-sequential model. As I research more and begin to think of this topic in developing policy I see this model providing structure to the process and ability to move swiftly toward achievement. The stage sequential model resembles the nursing process and is cyclical and dynamic (Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2016). The steps to the stage sequential model process includes policy agenda setting, policy formation, program implementation, and policy evaluation (Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2016). I feel this would be best to use to keep me organized in the process, keep the process moving in an appropriate direction, and provide guidance along the way. References 2015 Ohio drug overdose data: General findings. (2015). Retrieved from Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2016). NR-506 Week 2: Policy Making Process: How Nurses Can Make an Impact [Online lesson]. Downers Grove, IL: DeVry Education Group. Rebekah, Great choice. We all need to think about not only a policy issue of concern but also what we think we might propose to do about it. Here is a question for all. What specific changes will you recommend to a legislator to help solve the problem of concern that you have identified? This will take some work to locate ideas and pick the best one. It is something you must do while in this course. You can't expect the legislator to come up with the answers after all. You are the health care expert and leader. Sincerely, Dr. Cate Stiller Dr. Stiller: My issue is the banning of plastic bags. The specific changes I would like to see is the phasing out/elimination of all disposable plastic bags and charging customers $0.10 for paper bags. The goal will be for people to use reusable shopping bags and eliminate non-biodegradable waste. Many states and cities have passed legislation on this. Following the outline of current successful legislation will allow for clearly worded policy to be implemented in my location. Many people are aware of current laws prohibiting the use of disposable plastic bags and are aware of the negative health impacts (Dijk, Kappen, Schuurmans, & Wijck, 2015). When people who were not aware are educated, they support the bans (Dijk et al., 2015). The legislation I would like to see would include education provided to the community on the health and environmental benefits of reusable bags. While paper bags are wasteful and have a high production cost of trees, processing, fuel, transport, etc. they still are biodegradable in the end. This is why there will be a charge for paper bags, to encourage the use of reusable. It is also important to educate the proper maintenance of reusable bags. They should be laundered and one should keep separate bags for meat and produce and not interchange them in order to not spread food borne illnesses like e. coli and salmonella. I would like to work with an organization called the Ohio Environmental Council, they have experience and resources to push environmental legislation through the proper channels and have had much success. They currently have a page on the website describing green living and how an individual can make changes (Ohio Environmental Council, 2017). I would like to expand this from a suggestion to a law. References Dijk, J. M., Kappen, T. H., Schuurmans, M. J., & Wijck, A. M. (2015). The Relation Between Patients' NRS Pain Scores and Their Desire for Additional Opioids after Surgery. Pain Practice, 15(7), 604-609. doi:10.1111/papr.12217 Ohio Environmental Council. (2017). Green Living. Retrieved from