Evidence-Based Maternity Care, Essay Example

Requisite steps of healthcare policy analysis that serve to shape obstetric nursing practice environment

Obstetric care in United States of America is one of the essentially neglected service areas. To this extent first lady Michele Obama mentioned the need for accessible maternal care since maternal deaths have doubled in United States during the past decades (Smith, 2010).  As such, steps in attempts at shaping healthcare policy analysis have begun. The analysis encompasses a series of critical thinking measurements. The first step is establishing a task force to investigate current policies that allow women access to maternity care in the country.

Next is evaluating whether there is need for more skills in the obstetric environment to service pregnant women in the society. A third step is assessing whether the current obstetric nursing environment has the capacity to service pregnant women in their specific isolated geographic locations. With respect to training, nursing service has already designed polices to increase both the quantity and quality of obstetric advance nurses in the workforce. However, are these nurses evenly distributed across the country allowing access to every pregnant woman irrespective of her geographic location?

Currently, health reform polices pertaining to women’s health are being pursued. The Medicaid expansion program allows undocumented immigrant women limited access to health care during pregnancy. It is still inadequate, but better than none at all. This explains the marked increase in maternal deaths because there are 11 million undocumented people in United States of America who have no or limited access to healthcare. Some 5 million are women within childbearing ages (Sakala & Corry, 2008).               When steps are taken in analyzing health care policy with respect to the obstetric nursing environment polices such as these must be revisited if human rights are to be upheld

References

Sakala, C., & Corry, M. (2008). Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Achieve. The Child Birth Connection. Retrieved on September, 27^th, 2015 from http://www.milbank.org/uploads/documents/0809MaternityCare/0809MaternityCare.html

Smith, S. (2010). Doubling of maternal deaths in U.S. ‘scandalous,’ rights group says. CNN