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Power dynamics, health policy, and politics.

Article Excerpt
Now front and center in the Public's minds, health care policy issues were influential topics during the Presidential primary debates and primary elections last year. National attention has turned once again to the dilemma of the rising number of uninsured Americans. As the staggering number of 45 million uninsured Americans increases daily (The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, 2008), the effects are felt in emergency rooms and through rising health insurance premiums, overtaxed health departments, and dwindling community resources for discharge planning.

Nurses are in the unique position to assume a grassroots advocacy role and stimulate a change in the health care system. The task is to convert daily clinical issues into policy issues. Nurses are experts in providing clinical care and can move into the role of policy advocate to effect change. Acting in an advocacy role will bring a dimension to professional practice, offering the satisfying reward of an improved health care system for patients (Abood, 2007).

The Legacy of Political Advocacy

Nurses have a legacy of political advocacy. Nursing pioneers Florence Nightingale and Lillian Ward understood the use of power, how to develop policy, and how to move it through the political system. These two women lived in a society ruled by men, yet they persevered and changed the system. Two outstanding examples of political advocacy, they exemplify how the power of one can educate, inform, and change policy.

Florence Nightingale was born to an upper-class English family and understood the power and influence of money and name recognition. A firm believer in sanitation to reduce infection, Florence proposed hand washing would decrease the spread...

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