NRS 430 Professional Development of Nursing Professionals

Sample Answer

Nurses play a critical role in health provision as frontline workers, policymakers, and patient advocates. While serving in various capacities, nurses encounter many problems that require an in-depth understanding and sustainable solutions.

As a result, they should have extensive practice skills and embrace self-development as professionals. Doing so will enable nurses to excel in their roles and achieve health equity goals. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of the National Academy of Medicine 2021 report on nursing practice.

Report’s Recommendations and the Significance of Health Equity

Nursing is an evolving profession hence the need for strategic measures that help nurses achieve long-term health goals. The National Academy of Medicine 2021 report focuses on the future of nursing and how health equity can be achieved.

To a significant extent, the report discusses the measures necessary for reducing health disparities and promoting health equity. Other parts include cost reduction, technology utilization, and achieving patient-centered and family-focused care (National Academy of Medicine, 2021).

Health equity is significant in this report since it is the central component. According to Carratala and Maxwell (2020), population health goals cannot be attained without health equity. In this case, nursing professionals and healthcare stakeholders must collaborate to ensure everyone has a fair and just chance to attain the highest health levels.

The report stresses that achieving health equity in the United States requires a strong nursing capacity and workforce. Measures of strengthening nursing capacity and expertise include an adequate education and training, leadership opportunities, and promoting nurses’ well-being (National Academy of Medicine, 2021).

Besides, barriers that limit nurses’ capacity and their contributions to advancing population health should also be lifted. For instance, restricting the scope of practice reduces nurses’ capacity and should be addressed to empower nurses to practice to their full extent of education and training.

Social Determinants of Health and Impacts on Health Equity

Humans live in different locations with diverse climatic conditions, health practices, and cultures. Social determinants of health (SDOH) represent the nonmedical factors influencing health outcomes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022) described SDOH as the conditions where people are born, live, work, and grow.

Key areas include social and community context, neighborhood, education, and healthcare access and quality. Each SDOH has profound implications on health equity and other critical health variables. For instance, healthcare access and quality differences across races and regions continue to influence health outcomes across populations profoundly.

People of color and low-income populations experience many health problems that could be prevented through improved access to care (Carratala & Maxwell, 2020; Ndugga & Artiga, 2023). For instance, inadequate insurance coverage, staffing shortages, and transport problems are common in rural areas and among underserved populations.

These challenges impact when and where these populations access healthcare services. Addressing these disparities is crucial for fair and just opportunities for all populations to engage in health.

The Role of Nurses in Improving Health Equity

Nurses understand patients’ problems and social needs comprehensively due to their active role in healthcare processes. Among many roles, nurses can improve health equity and impact social needs by self-development as professional leaders and advocating for patients.

As highlighted in the National Academy of Medicine 2021 report, health equity is best addressed by experienced nurses who are ready to address practice problems. Therefore, individual growth as leaders is crucial for improved outcomes as far as health equity and social needs are concerned.

Advocating for patients means defending patients’ rights, safety, and needs to ensure they receive care that addresses their needs comprehensively (Nsiah et al., 2019). Nurses should also serve a central role in health education.

According to Patja et al. (2022), health education improves health decision-making and enables populations to embrace preventive health. Therefore, health problems that can be prevented through preventive health in vulnerable populations are minimized.

For instance, chronic disease prevalence could be reduced through healthy eating and lifestyle adjustments. Health education can be centered on these areas.

Significance of Self-care and Evidence-Based Strategies

Self-care includes individual measures nurses incorporate into their daily practice to maintain health, cope with stress, and prevent disease. Regarding nurse burnout, self-care improves nurses’ mental, physical, and mental well-being, which helps them to overcome fatigue, anxiety, and stressors that increase burnout (Monroe et al., 2021).

Self-care strategies for nurses’ personal and spiritual health vary with nurses’ specialties, experiences, work environments, and routine challenges. They include mindfulness interventions, physical exercises, rest, and adequate sleep. Research shows that mindfulness interventions help nurses to respond to stressful events more objectively and avoid negative thought patterns (Monroe et al., 2021).

Other outcomes include building resiliency and improving how nurses connect with their colleagues. Aerobic exercises decrease nurse burnout by reducing workplace stress (Mohebbi et al., 2019). The significance of these interventions underlines the need for healthcare organizations to implement and sustain self-care programs for nurses.

Conclusion

All populations deserve high-quality, affordable, and accessible care. Consequently, healthcare professionals and stakeholders should collaborate to advance health equity and address issues causing health disparities. As frontline workers, nurses can improve health equity and social needs by self-development as leaders, advocating for patients, and providing health education.

Besides, they should embrace and practice self-care to cope with nurse burnout effectively. In this case, they should always be empowered and prepared to deliver the highest achievable patient outcomes.

References

• Carratala, S., & Maxwell, C. (2020). Health disparities by race and ethnicity. Center for American Progress. https //www.americanprogress.org/article/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Social determinants of health at CDC. https //www.cdc.gov/about/sdoh/index.html
  Mohebbi, Z., Dehkordi, S. F., Sharif, F., & Banitalebi, E. (2019). The effect of Aerobic exercise on occupational stress of female nurses a controlled clinical trial. investigacion y educacion en enfermeria, 37(2), e05. https //doi.org/10.17533/udea.iee.v37n2e05
  Monroe, C., Loresto, F., Horton-Deutsch, S., Kleiner, C., Eron, K., Varney, R., & Grimm, S. (2021). The value of intentional self-care practices the effects of mindfulness on improving job satisfaction, teamwork, and workplace environments. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 35(2), 189–194. https //doi.org/10.1016/j.apnu.2020.10.003
  
• National Academy of Medicine. (2021). The Future of Nursing 2020–2030 Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity. https //nam.edu/publications/the-future-of-nursing-2020-2030/
  
• Ndugga, N., & Artiga, S. (2023). Disparities in health and health care 5 key questions and answers. KFF. https //www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/disparities-in-health-and-health-care-5-key-question-and-answers/
  Nsiah, C., Siakwa, M., & Ninnoni, J. P. K. (2019). Registered Nurses’ description of patient advocacy in the clinical setting. Nursing Open, 6(3), 1124–1132. https //doi.org/10.1002/nop2.307
  
• Patja, K., Huis in ‘t Veld, T., Arva, D., Bonello, M., Orhan Pees, R., Soethout, M., & van der Esch, M. (2022). Health promotion and disease prevention in the education of health professionals a mapping of European educational programmes from 2019. BMC Medical Education, 22(1), 778. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03826-5