Chapter 7: Policy: Assessment, Development, Analysis, and Evaluation
Use the links below to complete the internet exercises for this chapter.
Internet Exercise 7-1
This chapter has discussed the importance of understanding the potential impact of nurses on policy issues.
1. Go to the website for your state board of nursing. You can find this website by going to any search engine and typing in (for example) ‘Alabama Board of Nursing’.
2. Once in the website look for a link to ‘Nursing demographics’. This might be found under a Center for Nursing for the state. For example, in Alabama the link is found at Look under ‘Nursing Demographics’.
3. Once you have found the link, determine how many registered nurses are currently employed in your state.
3. Think of a nursing issue that might impact nurses in your state, using the number of RNs as part of the rationale for choosing that issue.
4. Write your findings and be prepared to discuss them in class or online on the discussion board or chat room.
Internet Exercise 7-2
This chapter has discussed policy development in which the initial problem is developed into a policy proposal.
- Go to the AACN website follow the side links to Publications and then follow the drop down links to Issue Bulletin. Read the paper titled “State Legislative Initiatives To Address the Nursing Shortage” from October 2006.
- Identify the nursing problem that is under study for policy development.
- Identify state level policy recommendations to help address the nursing problem.
Write your findings and be prepared to discuss them in class or online on the discussion board or chat room.
Internet Exercise 7-3
The text has described the ways in which nurses can become involved in the policy process. One of the first things that nurses need to do is to become knowledgeable about the policy process as well as current legislation that will inform future policies.
- Go to the website and enter the word ‘nursing’ in the ‘search bill text’ screen. This will send you to all current legislation- both House and Senate that contains the word nursing.
- Choose one of the bills and read it.
- Analyze the bill in terms of your own nursing knowledge. Is the bill one that promotes nursing? Are you supportive of it?
- How would this bill inform and impact policies and your own practice?