Create a 3-5 page paper identifying the health concern that you think is most appropriate to address for the community in your practice environment. Your choice should be based on the evaluation the relevant data that you have gathered for your chosen issue.

Master’s-level nurses need to be able to think beyond the bedside. It is important to be able to research, synthesize, and apply evidence that will result in improved health outcomes for the communities and populations that are part of your care setting. Improving outcomes at a community or population level, even incrementally, can create noticeable and significant aggregate health improvements across all of a care setting’s patients.

Scenario

Your organization has created an initiative to improve one of the pervasive and chronic health concerns in the community. Some examples of possibilities for health improvement initiatives are nationwide concerns, such as type 2 diabetes, HIV, obesity, and the Zika virus. However, your organization wants you to identify the health concern that is most appropriate to address for the community in your practice environment. You will need to do your own research to gather and evaluate the relevant data for your chosen issue.

Instructions

The bullet points below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your population health improvement plan addresses all of the bullets below, at minimum. You may also want to read the Evidence-Based Population Health Improvement Plan Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Evidence-Based Population Health Improvement Plan [DOCX] to better understand how each criterion will be assessed:

• Evaluate the environmental and epidemiological data about your community so that you can illustrate and diagnose widespread population health issues.
• Develop an ethical health improvement plan that addresses the population health issue you have identified in your evaluation. The plan should be based upon the best available evidence and meet the cultural and environmental needs of your community.
• Justify the value and relevance of the evidence you used as the basis for your population health improvement plan.
• Propose criteria that can be used to evaluate the achievement of your health improvement plan’s outcomes.
• Explain how you plan to apply strategies for communicating with community members and colleagues in the health care profession in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way about the development and implementation of your health improvement plan.
• Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Example assessment: You may use the Evidence-Based Population Health Improvement Plan Example [PPTX] to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

APA Resources: You may use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] and the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX] to ensure your assessment is formatted in appropriate APA style.

Submission Requirements

• Length of submission: 3–5 double-spaced, typed pages. Your plan should be succinct yet substantive.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your evaluation, recommendations, and plans.
• APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to APA style.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 2: Apply evidence-based practice to design interventions to improve population health.
  • Evaluate environmental and epidemiological data regarding a community in order to diagnose widespread population health issues.
  • Develop an ethical health improvement plan to address a population health issue within a community that is based upon the best available evidence and meets the cultural and environmental needs of the community.
• Competency 3: Evaluate outcomes of evidence-based interventions.
  • Propose criteria that will be used to evaluate achievement of outcomes for a population health improvement plan.
• Competency 4: Evaluate the value and relative weight of available evidence upon which to make a clinical decision.
  • Justify the value and relevance of evidence used as the basis for a population health improvement plan.
• Competency 5: Synthesize evidence-based practice and academic research to communicate effective solutions.
  • Apply strategies for communicating with community members and colleagues in the health care profession in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way.
  • Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.