Role nurses play in the law-making process to influence the final bill passage
The legislative process through which a bill follows before becoming law has eight stages. Regardless of whether the bill is federal or national, the stages constitute bill introduction, committee action, hearing, mark-up, committee report, floor action, conference action, and executive action (New York Senate State, n.d). Nurses can influence the law-making process in three of the first four stages of the process. At the introduction stage, nurses, through their professional organizations, can influence the bill by asking Congress members to sponsor the bill. They do this by presenting their concern on one or several problems within the society (Brokaw, 2016). Secondly, nurses have an opportunity to influence the legislative process at the hearing stage. Here, the professional organization can propose a written validation to give their opinion and provide a background to the subject. Further, at this stage, the nurses have an opportunity to regulate how the bill will affect their role (Brokaw, 2016). The third way through which nurses can influence the legislative process is at the mark-up stage, where they have a chance to suggest changes and amendments, as recommendations, before the bill becomes a law.
Two Ways The Influence Can Take Place
Nonetheless, nurses have the mandate of influencing the legislative process in two distinct ways. The first way nurses can influence the process is by advocating for the concerns of society. Nurses, through their professional obligation, have an opportunity to act as advocates where they provide the essential link between the professional organization(s) and the lawmakers. The link serves as a platform through which the practitioners influence policies attributed to health (Brokaw, 2016). The second way through which the influence takes place is by acting as direct legislators in the legislative domain. In the domain, nurses become attendees of the health policy-making procedure.
Through this latter approach, the health practitioners become part of the process by actively participating in the legislative process from the introduction to the executive stages of the process to ensure the law is passed in favor of the proposed bill. However, from the two approaches through which nurses can influence the legislative process, I would prefer the advocacy option. Advocacy entails clarification and refining the presented opinions concerning the major issues on how the nursing community can be influenced. Therefore, the option represents a platform where the interest of the majority, rather than those of the individuals, is handled.
Role Nurses Play In Promoting Health Status
The social health determinants are the situations and environments where people are born, live, learn, worship, and play and how they impact their health. According to Singh et al. (2017), the social health determinants are responsible for attitudes and norms. Nurses have the mandate of promoting several health statuses like direct policies that impact these social health determinants. Majorly, nurses influence the health policies to serve as social norms protection. By taking part in the legislative process, the health practitioners can correct any problematic behavior within the society, in turn influencing how the social health determinants are influenced (Singh et al., 2017). Further, through the legislative process, nurses can advocate for how the essential social norms can be made part of the bill.
Conclusively, nurses have a major responsibility in how the legislative process can be shaped. As leaders, the practitioners are expected to influence the policies that back to enhance the number of nurses. Further, nurses have to encourage laws that provide support to technology advances. Lastly, nurses have to be aware of any new bill and policy that influences their profession since they are responsible for how effective nurses are in their service delivery to the public.
References
Brokaw, J. J. (2016). The nursing profession’s potential impact on policy and politics. American Nurse Journal. Web.
New York Senate State. (n.d.). How a bill becomes a law. Web.
Singh, G. K., Daus, G. P., Allender, M., Ramey, C. T., Martin, E. K., Perry, C., &
Vedamuthu, I. P. (2017). Social determinants of health in the United States: Addressing major health inequality trends for the nation, 1935-2016. International Journal of MCH and AIDS, 6(2), 139-164.