Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses are not required to obtain continuing education for regular licensure renewal in Indiana. Policy change would be needed to require CEU’s

Health Public Policy
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Institution
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Health Public Policy
Public policy refers to a decision that is made by the government to make things better in society (Birkland, 2014). When understanding public policy and its creation, one must understand why the idea came up in the first place. Even with the uncertainty of the role that the government plays in society, public policies have played a significant role in ensuring the safety of the society. Public policy is personified in “constitutions”, judicial assessment and governmental acts. Notably, the belief that the government can make a difference in the society is strong even with various studies and observations on how to do the wrong thing. Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses are not required to obtain continuing education for regular licensure renewal in Indiana. The society should believe that the government is capable of making policies that make life better because if they do not, they end up accepting the shortcomings as unavoidable. This public policy is supposed to do good things and therefore ethics and values become important. Ethics refer to a person’s moral judgment about doing right and wrong and ethical behavior makes a huge difference in any business. In the nurses’ public policy, ethics could come in hand in ensuring that the government understands the right decisions to make and how those decisions will affect the public. The “National Health Council” NHS, ensures that they have enough power to address some health issues that could be dangerous for the public (Mullins-Owen, 2016).

The NHS comes together to ensure that they are committed to placing the needs of in first place. In Indiana Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses are not required to obtain continuing education for regular licensure renewal. There are many professions that require being licensed before working in a selected occupation. The nurses are the second largest group of people who get licensed with over 4 million nurses having licenses to practice. Such licensing is supposed to protect the public from any danger through giving minimal qualifications and competencies for entry-level practitioners. The reason why the nurses in Indiana are given these conditions is that nursing is one of the professions that posses’ great risk to the public when an inexperienced individual becomes involved. According to (Weiss and Tappen, 2014) an advanced nursing role requires that the individual has a great responsibility, leadership, decision making, and autonomy. For nurses to practice their profession properly, they are supposed to have a balance in their ethical beliefs, their profession values and legislation relevancy. With this in mind, it is clear that advanced nurses are supposed to have great awareness and understanding of the importance of ethical decision-making. Values can be described as the things a person sees as important and values are needed in making crucial decisions in any business. For an organization or business to become successful, they are required to understand the core values of their employer which goes a long way in helping make a decision on which job suits best. Values are important in public policy as they help the government in focusing on what is important for citizens. These are the characters that the individual of the government possesses. If a government official is corrupt, they will not be in a position to place good policies that serve the needs of the public. Instead, they end up making selfish decisions that serve their needs and end up harming the society. The values of an institution are not only about their characters but, the ability to have the courage to guide oneself in the right direction in order to serve the Nation. The government can be pulled apart by different opinions of the individuals involved but when they make a decision, it goes through and they have to compromise for the greater good of the society. These compromises involve ones values since the government believes that the policies that they make should benefit the public.
In order to have an understanding of why ethics and values are important in public policy, one has to know how these policies are structured. The government sometimes may instill policies that the public sees as cruel and unfair but what they do not understand that the policies are supposed to be helpful. A way to ensure that the public believes and trusts the government is by trying to be practice transparency. This does not mean that they become transparent about everything but sharing the most important things. I chose the public policy in order to make the public have a full understanding of the risks that would take place if the licensing did not take place. I also want to give the public a chance to understand things from a government point of view which then, will build more trust that the public fully trusts the government to make the right choice for their safety. This policy would also minimize the questions that arise on government officials being ethical and having great values that allow them to stay in focus and make a patient needs priority.
The Nurse Practice Act (NPA) is responsible to dictating the regulations and rules for all registered nurses in any state; therefore that are the makers of the Indiana licensing requirements (National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2016). The Indiana State Board of Nursing is the people who are responsible for issuing of licenses as well as stating the minimum qualification required to practice (Buppert, 2014). This makes the board the decision maker of the policy on licensing of registered nurses and the fact that they are not allowed having continuing education in order to have regular licensing. The board interest is for the safety of the public and therefore any policy that they instill will put their safety first. The reason that the board takes charge of decisions of nurses is that they understand the risks of the profession and the quality of care required for each patient. They, therefore, have to be cautious on the decision they make in favor of the public. The panel goes through the entire variables and the interests of each party involved in the public policy. It is important to note that the decisions they make are not easy as each member has an opinion on the policy being made. There are of course disadvantages that come with being the decision maker of the second largest profession. One of the disadvantages of the nursing licensing is the fact that the board decides who is qualified as it leaves some nurses out of jobs. The nurses feel like the panel is unfair in their decisions and have no care for the well being of the nurses. The issues of the nurses will then escalate and the public may lose their trust on the board. If a nurse is said to be unqualified, they will want to discredit the board giving room for the public to question the intentions of the Indiana State Board of Nursing. The policy, however, has been a great success since implementing the policy has ensured that the patients get the best and quickest treatment. The policy has also given the board the mandate to get rid of the unqualified nurses who pose a great threat to the community.
The Indiana State Nurses Association (ISNA) is an organization for the registered nurses. The organization aims at protecting and promoting the nursing profession, the nurses and the patients who need nursing care (Mason, Leavitt and Chaffee, 2013). For this reason, ISNA is the party interested in the public policy. The company takes into account the policy as it gives nurses a chance to become more active in their profession and value the part they play in a patient’s life. The nurses of Indiana also get insight and education on the government and the importance of the policy. Consequently, ISNA understands that the nursing – the profession is risky, tiresome and challenging and therefore take over the role of looking out for the needs of the nurses. It is important to note that the company only intends to make the nurses’ life easier through becoming the decision makers of the policies. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a company that involves the community, professions, and company representatives. They are required to come up with all contribute in order to come up with decisions that affect the community. Some of the policies in the most professional are very strict and if these individuals lack someone who can ensure that they are given a fair deal, and then the professions end up not performing as expected. These companies will balance the issues of the profession and why the policies are important for the public, which then helps them in implementing the best public policies. The policy of the licensing of nurses in Indiana has over the years experienced some challenges which make it difficult to provide the care needed for patients. First and foremost, there has been an acceleration in the number of retired registered nurses. This has then reduced the number of nurses in the hospital and the patients have become the recipients of the shortcoming. The policy is very lenient for the nurses since they do not require any indication of continuing education; however, more knowledge is always useful since there are new and improved cares giving methods being developed every day. Secondly, the policy also poses the challenge of development of the nursing profession. If the nurses are not required to train, it makes practicing slowly as the nurses still use the knowledge from the past instead of pursuing new and easier methods. The board should consider rethinking the policy and instilling a policy that requires the nurses to seek a further education if they want to practice. The policy does not have to be regular since so many nurses would be out of a job but training after every two years would help develop the minds of the professions and give them a wider scope on how to take care of certain issues. Further education is also important as it ensures that the brain is not asleep which keeps the mind active at all the time. On the brighter side, the policy has been a success since it has given nurses who would have otherwise been jobless a chance to help the public. The policy has also ensured that patients do not lack attention since there are a lot of registered nurses. The policy is friendly to both the nurses and patient which is a success for making sure that both parties are comfortable and have peace of mind.
Achieving nursing excellence is important and satisfying as it allows nurses have an essential role in ensuring that patients get the best outcome (Thomas, 2015). The first strength of the licensing policy is the fact that it provided the highest quality of nursing care. The friendly limitations of the policy give many nurses a chance to share their services. The second strength of the policy is the fact the patients are not neglected. The policy lack of continuing education in licenses means more employees which then translates to patients getting all the attention required for their recovery. On a negative note, the nurses of Indiana are only limited practicing in the state alone. Other states require for a nurse to show interest in continuing their education in order to get licensed. When a nurse decides to relocate to another state, which such regulations they will have to give up their career as they do not meet the criteria. Additionally, continuing education should be a priority for all nurses since they understand the significance of new practices in nursing school. as a recommendation, I would recommend that the policy becomes revised allowing for a training program for the nurses. It is expensive to further their studies but a training program would give them a chance to keep up with the new strategies at an affordable price.

References
Birkland, T. A. (2014). An introduction to the policy process: Theories, concepts, and models of public policy making. Routledge.Buppert, C. (2014). Nurse practitioner’s business practice and legal guide. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2013). Policy and Politics in Nursing and Healthcare-Revised Reprint. Elsevier Health Sciences.Mullins-Owens, H. (2016). Integrative Health Services: Ethics, Law, and Policy for the New Public Health Workforce. Springer.National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2016). A changing environment: 2016 NCSBN environmental scan. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 6(4), 4-37.
Thomas, T. (2015). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.Weiss, S. A., & Tappen, R. M. (2014). Essentials of nursing leadership and management. FA Davis.