Organizational Capacity for Priority Setting in Healthcare, Essay Example

Deeply entrenched in the healthcare system, nurses witness first hand quality issues as well as performance gaps. Nursing executives are afforded the agency to influence both organizational and public policies if they used their sources of power effectively. Legitimate power within nursing contexts refers to the power they get via their status as sound caregivers and integral role that nurses have within the current healthcare system. Indeed, the demand for Family Nurse Practitioners (FNPs) has sharply increased due to the expansion of healthcare to all Americans, which has resulted in more Americans seeking healthcare and a dearth of primary care physicians. As such, FNPs are needed because they essentially possess as much clout within the medical field as primary care physicians. They possess the right to prescribe medications, perform physical examinations, and promote healthy lifestyles through various teaching modules. FNPs must have logged more than 500 clinical hours and be practicing registered nurses for a minimum of two years. At the macro, meso, and micros levels, registered nurses retain the authority to actively and legitimately advocate for healthcare reform as a result of the legitimate power they obtain from their licensing as nurses to nursing practices. Thus, nurses possess legitimate authority given to then in addition to responsibilities and rights to advocate for more equitable delivery of healthcare services to patients. Within the field of obstetrics, nurses have legitimate authority to conduct examinations as well as offer services such as papsmears and tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that a patient might have contracted. Nurses are able to influence organizational changes at the micro level rather than at the macro level because it is easier to facilitate change by mobilizing the resources they have direct access to.

References

Roussel, L. (2011). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. United States: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Waldau, S. (2010). Creating organizational capacity for priority setting in healthcare using a bottom-up approach to implement a top-down policy decision. University Medical Dissertations. Retrieved September 26, 2015 from http://umu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:353707/FULLTEXT01.pdf