Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Essay

Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Essay

 

The Editor

Journal of Community Health Nursing

5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.

 

Subject: The Prescription Drug Affordability Program for Elderly Individuals (PDAPEI) – A Policy to Improve Quality of Care and Outcomes

Dear Editor,

The Current State of the Quality of Care and Outcomes

I am writing to urge the adoption of The Prescription Drug Affordability Program for Older Individuals (PDAPEI) as a critical policy measure to address the current status of the older population’s quality of treatment and results in light of the escalating cost of prescription medications. Health policy must be developed to ensure that this vulnerable group has greater access to required pharmaceuticals and better health outcomes. It concerns how the older population is now being cared for, especially in light of how affordable prescription medications are. Obtaining necessary therapies is significantly hampered by the rising expense of pharmaceuticals, resulting in subpar health outcomes (Bhatt, 2022). The entire health and quality of life of senior people, who frequently take many drugs to treat chronic diseases and maintain their health, are impacted by this issue.

The PDAPEI policy comprehensively solves the problems that the aged population has getting access to reasonably priced prescription medications. The policy’s guidelines call for the extension and streamlining of current medication aid programs and government-led negotiations with pharmaceutical companies to reduce medicine prices. They also call for the safe importation of prescription pharmaceuticals. These tactics are intended to lessen the financial burden on elderly people and boost their access to essential medications, ultimately resulting in better health results.

Justification

The PDAPEI policy must be put into effect if the aged population is to receive better care and have better outcomes. The policy makes sure that pharmaceuticals become more accessible and inexpensive by negotiating reduced rates for prescription drugs that are regularly used by the elderly. As elderly people are more likely to follow their prescribed therapies when they can afford them, cost plays a critical role in medication adherence (Rajkumar, 2020). Further improving affordability and medication adherence among the elderly will be the policy’s emphasis on promoting generic drugs and facilitating simpler access to pharmaceutical assistance programs.

Advocacy for Policy Development

To effectively address the specific issue of escalating prescription drug prices among the senior population, it is crucial to advocate for policy reform in other care settings as well. This issue is not unique to any one group of people or industry. As a result, the PDAPEI policy’s concepts and recommendations can be modified and put into practice in a variety of care settings, including long-term care facilities, home healthcare, and community health centers. Regardless of where they receive their care, we can ensure that older adults have consistent and affordable access to their needed medications by lobbying for policy changes in these contexts.

Interprofessional Aspects

The interprofessional components of the PDAPEI strategy are essential to achieving the goals for the aged population effectively and efficiently. The strategy supports thorough medication management and customized treatment programs by fostering interprofessional collaboration among healthcare professionals, including doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and social workers (Huber, 2022). With the help of this cooperative method, prescription regimens can be evaluated holistically while considering both clinical and budgetary factors. Pharmacists can offer invaluable expertise, particularly in managing drug interactions, finding cost-effective substitutes, and ensuring medication compliance.

The Prescription Drug Affordability Program for Older Individuals (PDAPEI) must be implemented to address the existing situation of the quality of treatment and results for the older population affected by the rising cost of prescription pharmaceuticals. With the help of this program, senior people will be able to manage their medications more affordably, more efficiently, and with better health outcomes. The target population’s desired results will be efficiently and effectively attained through fostering interprofessional collaboration and pushing for policy change in various care settings. I appreciate you considering my viewpoint on this crucial issue. The PDAPEI policy, in my opinion, has the potential to significantly impact senior citizens’ lives and raise the standard of care provided by our healthcare system as a whole.

Sincerely,

Your Name

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References

Bhatt, P. (2022). The Impact of Rising Prescription Drug Costs on the Elderly in the United States. Master of Public Health Capstone Presentations. https://jdc.jefferson.edu/mphcapstone_presentation/418/

Huber, C. (2022). Interprofessional Collaboration in Health Care. Praxis, 110(1), 3-4. https://europepmc.org/article/med/34983202

Vincent Rajkumar S. (2020). The high cost of prescription drugs: causes and solutions. Blood Cancer Journal, 10(6), 71. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41408-020-0338-x

Appendix

Journal Instructions

To ensure the rapid publication of your letter, please address the following points:

The letter must be a maximum of 1500 words (excluding references).

Please use a maximum of 15 references (one being the article under discussion).

Please do not include any figures or tables in the letter.

Please include your name, address and contact details in your letter

Scenario

Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health issue occurring within a specific population. You researched position papers regarding this health concern, and you developed a health policy proposal to positively impact the health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a greater audience regarding your policy proposal.

You are going to write a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed nursing journal. Choose from one of the journals in the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals and go to the journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for submitting an editorial, such as format requirements, topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing journal that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you want to use another journal that is not on this list, please make sure the journal does address health care, because this is the purpose of the assessment.

Instructions

For this assessment, you will write a letter to the editor of a scholarly journal. Your goal is to be informative about the policy that you developed for your previous Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal assessment, while also being persuasive about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health care settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your assessment submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy [DOC] to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.

Look back to the data or scenario you used in your previous assessment to address this criterion.

Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.

Justify why the developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.

Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.

Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of the policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.

Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style (or the journal’s preferred style).

Example assessment: You may use the Assessment 3 Example [PDF] to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

Submission Requirements

The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on the journal you choose. To find out the requirements, go to the journal’s Web site. There should be a section regarding submissions that will address how to format letters to the editor, and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a limit).

If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the number of resources required, use 3–5 sources.

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To be sure that your faculty knows the submission and formatting requirements for your letter, include the journal’s guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you submit for this assessment.

CRITERIA NON-PERFORMANCE BASIC PROFICIENT DISTINGUISHED
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Does not explain the current state of the quality of care and outcomes. Explains the current state of the quality of care and outcomes, but the link to the specific issue in a target population is unclear. Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation).
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy. Does not explain how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy. Explains how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes necessitates health policy development and advocacy, but the link to a specific issue in a target population is unclear. Analyzes how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy. Analyzes how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Does not justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Provides a weak or flawed justification for why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Impartially considers other perspectives.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Does not explain how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Explains how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population, but does not truly advocate or call others to action with regard to developing policy. Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Acknowledges potential challenges to policy development.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Does not explain how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Explains how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population, but does not fully relate this to the developed policy. Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Does not communicate in a way that is clear or persuasive. Communicates in a professional manner, but the approach is somewhat unclear or is not very persuasive. There are mechanical writing errors that reduce the effectiveness of communication. Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Identifies specific strategies or approaches used to ensure clear communication.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. Does not integrate relevant sources to support assertions; does not correctly format citations and references. Sources lack relevance or are poorly integrated, or citations or references are incorrectly formatted. Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. Citations are free from all errors.