Outcome 5 Apply quality and safety measures to improve patient outcomes.

Hospitals engage in many collaborative activities to improve quality and safety of the care they provide. Such examples are infection control, reducing health care disparities, quality measurements, and accreditation. As you can see the topic of quality and safety can entail many components, one such component is being socially and politically active.    

   This week’s assignment is to write a Health Policy Memo on a relevant health policy topic. Think of writing a letter in memo format to your representative in Congress or someone in a policy making position ( such as president of nursing, board of directors, mayor, chief of police, school board etc. 

Here is the assignment:

The purpose of your memo is to inform the policy maker about a specific policy issue and persuade him or her about a needed change or action.

Start by:

Choosing  a health policy issue – there are many- here are some examples: such as health care reform, patient safety and quality metrics, nursing education, end of life, gun control, food and safety, mental health,  environmental issues, nurse staffing ratios, tobacco legislation, air pollution, restraints, & increase in  violence for health care worker. Please reach out to the professor if you need assistance. Remember there are many topics – this list is just a few. Please do not use previous work from another course. 

Who are you addressing your letter too?

Include the purpose of the memo ( what is the issue, what course of action is recommended,  include supporting statement why your topic needs to be addressed)

 You may begin in letter format, and include the reference page at the end.  You do not have to use in-text citations in this assignment 

The main post should be  a one page letter, double spaced. Use scholarly references, support your statements  use proper APA for the end reference page and respond to one colleague’s post. 

E-portfolio-  Once graded and edited, this Health care policy Memo can be added to your Wix Portfolio under Outcome 5. Please write a quick introduction for it when you add it there.

Very important as fallow: 

Please address the letter to The CEO in a long term care facility.

Please focus on this little paragraph.

Please be simple.

Will’s assignment asked him to write a memo to a policymaking authority advocating for a specific policy change that would improve the health and safety of patients. In his initial draft, Wieler hadn’t quite understood that he was being asked to write a letter to a particular authority figure, nor had he advocated a particular policy change. Instead, he was discussing health and safety in a more general way. By the end of our session, Wieler had decided to write a memo to the CEO of his hospital system to explain the perils of insufficient nursing staff and advocate for appropriate nursing staff ratios.