In what ways did this experience change your views on advocacy?
The experience changed my views on advocacy in several ways. Firstly, the experienced help in providing me with a clear understanding of what was expected of me as a health advocate as part of the health care arena. Assi, Peterson, & Hatmaker (2018) indicate that health care advocates have a crucial role in ensuring that they promote the rights of their patients while helping to build capacity to improve community health. In my view, this is an aspect that changed after my experience through the videos and articles. Secondly, the experience also provided me with a hands-on understanding of how I would be able to offer patient-centred care taking into account the real complexities in the healthcare system. By providing patient-centred care, health advocates can promote the best possible health outcomes reflecting on patient needs, wants, and preferences in the quality of care.
How can you incorporate advocacy into your life and career?
I tend to believe that I can incorporate health advocacy in both my life and career as a way of ensuring that I stand for improved quality of care for individual patients. In my experience, I will apply health advocacy by ensuring that I undertake all the necessary approaches to promoting wellness. For example, I will always ensure that I engage in regular physical activities, as well as, promote healthy eating like a health advocate that understands the value that this may have towards advancing wellness. In my career, I will incorporate advocacy through patient education. As a health advocate, one is expected to engage in patient education as a way of providing individual patients with information on how they would be able to improve on their health care outcomes (Zaccagnini & Pechacek, 2019).
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What was your most "ah-ha" moment when learning about healthcare advocacy in all the different ways it is practised?
My most “ah-ha” moment came when I learned the implications of health advocacy as part of its application in nursing practice. Throughout the semester, I had learned the value and importance of being a health advocate, which I considered as being vital towards improving my overall capacity to improve efficiency in the services that I offer. However, I experienced an “ah-ha” moment when I learned its implications, especially towards improving the quality of care. Health advocacy helps enhance the quality of care, as it creates a new standard that health advocates can work by in ensuring that the services offered overall match expectations from the perspective of the patient (Reed, Fitzgerald, & Bish, 2016). I considered this as a crucial moment in my learning about health advocacy, as it seeks to define how I would be able to apply the knowledge I have gained.
What kind of advocacy did you feel was most helpful to patients/consumers in your opinion?
In my opinion, the kind of advocacy that I feel was most helpful to patients/consumers is self-advocacy. Self-advocacy creates an avenue through which patients/consumers can learn more about their health with the sole focus being towards enhancing their capacities to improve on their wellness. The idea of having to consider self-advocacy is defined by the fact that each patient is well positioned towards making his/her own decision, depending on his/her health needs. As a health advocate, it is imperative to ensure that one promotes self-advocacy as a way of ensuring that one can capitalize on the fact that they have the power and capacity to improve on their health.
What kind of advocacy did you feel was not as helpful to patients/consumers in your opinion?
The health advocacy that I considered as not being as helpful to patients/consumers, in my opinion, was non-instructed. Although non-instructed support may be viewed as being somewhat useful in seeking to create a standard for improved service delivery, the main challenge that it creates is that it does not establish a front for effective decision making. In my view, this impacts on its effectiveness, taking into account that it creates a challenge in ensuring that patients can achieve the best possible outcomes. Generally, this means that it may be much more challenging for a health advocate in seeking to create a standard through which to improve on service delivery. For the health advocate, this means that it would be much more challenging to establish a front through which to capitalize on health service delivery as a way of improving wellness.
What do your area do you see as a need for healthcare advocacy now and in the future?
The main area that I see as having a significant need for health advocacy is on mental health. Currently, mental health remains as one of the critical public health issues affecting a considerable number of people in society. Health advocacy focused on mental health will be of great value towards ensuring that adequate steps are taken in a bid to ensuring that persons suffering from mental health issues receive the expected quality of care. In the future, one of the critical areas that are likely to need health advocacy is on unhealthy eating, which is contributing to exposure to serious health challenges. Promoting healthy eating will be of great value towards ensuring that society achieves wellness as one of the ways through which to enhance preventive care. Ultimately, this will help reduce exposure to a wide array of chronic health issues, including obesity, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases.
References
Assi, M. J., Peterson, C., & Hatmaker, D. D. (2018). Workforce Advocacy for a Professional Nursing Practice Environment. Contemporary Nursing E-Book: Issues, Trends, & Management , 232.
Reed, F. M., Fitzgerald, L., & Bish, M. R. (2016). Mixing methodology, nursing theory and research design for a practice model of district nursing advocacy. Nurse researcher , 23 (3).
Zaccagnini, M., & Pechacek, J. M. (2019). The doctor of nursing practice essentials: A new model for advanced practice nursing . Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
