NR 451 Week 7 Discussion - Health Federal Bills in Congress

NR 451 Week 7 Discussion - Health Federal Bills in Congress Capstone Course - NR-451 WK7 Discussion - Health Federal Bills in Congress There is much attention on federal health care policy and law. Health Bills: GovT provides a list of federal bills that are currently in process in Congressional Committees. Go to Choose a health-related federal bill of interest to you. Read through the bill and post a summary in your own words. Include the bill number and name. • How might this bill impact professional nursing practice standards if passed? If not passed? • How might the bill impact your own nursing practice? WK7 Discussion - Health Federal Bills in Congress - Post 1 Professor and classmates, The federal billed that interested me was H.R. 994: Examining Opioid Treatment Infrastructure Act of 2017. This bill was introduced by Bill Foster (D) a Representative for Illinois's 11th congressional district on Feb 9, 2017. This bill demands full accountability and disclosure from the Government Accountability Office to report all inpatient and outpatient drug related types of treatments, their availability, the need for detox programs, management of addictions, transitional residential support services, treatment programs for special populations (women, adolescents, and Indians). Such report must also include the barriers to real-time reporting of drug overdoses at all governmental levels (federal, state, and local), while attempting to develop ways to defeat those barriers ("H.R. 994-115th Congress", 2017). I believe that this bill impacts professional nursing practice standards by keeping appropriate surveillance over the opioid epidemic in the United States. If the bill passes, many institutions will be forced to disclose what their actual services are, and a better recognition of the services needed vs the services available will be identified, so nobody can be discriminated against. I believe that this bill is very important as it would allow a better monitoring of the overall epidemic that is being battled. If this bill does not pass, it will be very detrimental to many communities that are in the need for services and programs to overcome drug overdoses. Also, placing focus in the engagement of bridging the reporting barrier is a must to adequately monitor and combat this very debilitating problem. I believe that one of the ways this bill would affect my own nursing practice is by making me accountable and apart of the reporting demanded by the Government Accountability Office. Real-time reporting and bridging this gap would allow for better allocation of resources to combat this issue, focusing on those geographical regions that desperately need them more than others. As a healthcare member, I believe we are all instrumental in reporting many other issues and this would not be the exception.