Summary: New Ideas Becoming Health Care Policies

New Ideas Becoming Health Care Policies
HCS/455
October 28, 2013

New Ideas Becoming Health Care Policies
With new technology, new trends, current technology, and trends frequently changing, health care has evolved processes for health policies to continuously being added, reassessed, changed, and considered in order to help improve the United States health care system. There are several phases and transitions new ideas go through before it can be implemented into policy. In health care, every health facility plus more feels when there are changes in health related issues and policies, especially patients. This country needs well-informed, attentive, publically cognizant health care leaders and staff comprehensive of health
care issues. It is up to these professionals to stay informed on legislative changes and other health care issues. Everyone wants new technology and safer mechanics, and when health is of the essence, it is up to these organizations and professionals to make it happen and make it available at a reasonable price all while providing service above average. Trends cause policies to change and indicators are a reflection of the changes as they are happening, a sort of real life evolution of these organizations to adapt to these new trends.
When new topics and ideas get serious enough to be considered for policy, there are specific stages that take place in the process to policy.
In any given organization there is a group of people that are responsible for implementing and brainstorming new ideas to make things better and more efficient, safe, and easier for patients. When these teams collaborate and discuss different issues and topics, anyone of the team members can bring it to the table for discussion. The beginning of a policy process is the formulation stage, the first, and probably the most challenging stage for using formal decision methods and analysis. This stage also contains research from different people, multiple organizations, and many types of interest groups. The reason of the formulation stage is to produce a formal model of an agreed verdict. This stage involves the input of information and ideas, framing the issue, determining the rationale and clarifying the desired result, selecting the appropriate strategies, along with planning and identifying needed resources. This phase also includes determining possible options, preferred options, and sometimes doubling back to tweak and adjust. There are also action instruments that are used in this beginning stage which are information gathering, information analysis, and consultation. Sometimes it can make the process seem like a maze. Just talking about a topic is pretty simple, however creating a detailed definition of an issue is a dose of reality
and can be quite complex. Ideas can come from anywhere, the general public, cause groups, media and academic experts, extra parliamentary parties and party groupings, staff, executives or administration, official inquiries and ‘think tanks’. Ideas are singled out and dissected to make sure that the one selected is relevant and will have a positive outcome. Formulation provides policymakers with many choices for resolving issues. For effective formulation, information must comprise analysis that identifies the most effective policies and political authorizations. Professional policy analysts and the media can affect the policy formulation process but elected or appointed officials have the ultimate say in what proposed solutions are chosen to move into the next phase of policy adoption.
The next stage in turning ideas into policy is the legislative phase. The legislative phase includes policy material and putting it into action. It focuses on appropriateness of government action and deals with two main issues. It is also important for garnering support. The two main issues here are substance of the policy and the process of adopting the policy. During this stage, the selected policy is converted into an action plan. Policies ratified by federal, state, or local governmental organizations are executed through governing processes that convert the policy into written rules published by that government agency that holds responsibility for overseeing the policy. Definition of this phase is actions that obey a plan for example legislation, executive orders, and court decisions regarding organizational goals and anticipated outcomes from these organizations. Implementation directly follows this and incorporates actions and sometimes non actions from leaders of an organization particularly administrators, created to initiate policy into effect so that it achieves goals. This is where the money is spent, laws are passed, and regulations formulated. This part of the process is done by executive branches through regulation. These actions require resources, interpreting decisions and plan activities, and organization. Implementation of health care policy include multiple significant actors having drawn-out and contending objectives and outlooks who work in an environment of a big and complicated mix of government programs that need involvement from many levels and components of governmental entities and who are affected by control issues outside their direction. Actors in the implementation process are at all levels, such as the president and executive office staff from a federal standpoint, governor and staff from a state perspective, and mayors, county commissioners, and elected officials for local levels. These are only a few that have great impact on policy implementation in health care.
The final policy process stage is evaluate and modify stage, when current policies are reconsidered and sometimes edited or revised to adapt to change. It is inevitable that most major policies will be modified, but making minimal changes to current policies seems less debatable than creating large changes because they need minimal understanding of complete relationships, also minimal exertion to accomplish. Also, this stage is used to step back and look at the current policy being negotiated and make sure that it is capable of accomplishing its purpose, like a last stop before it is thrown into the policy pool to see if it floats. The evaluation and modification of existing policies is typically ongoing. This step usually involves a study of how effective the new policy has been in addressing the original problem, which often leads to additional public policy changes. It also includes reviewing funds and resources available to ensure that the policy can be maintained. This step has not always been treated as very important, but policy makers are increasingly finding ways to make sure that the tools needed for evaluation are included in each step of the public health care policy process. If there is or was a new policy set, this stage will feel useless in the beginning, but in time, it will be a necessity because new technology, new trends, new changes will create the need to adapt and adjust, therefore this step is vital to the continuous circle of health care policy change. With this step, there could be direct and indirect impacts, as well as short-term and long-term impacts. Monitoring this stage can predict how the relevant bureaucrat entities might implement the new changes, also helping plans on how to assist each entity as it develops the budgets, rules, guidelines and procedures needed to roll out the new policy. This stage also helps make adjustments for structures and programs, in addition to monitoring to see and document how it is functioning and if it is accomplishing its purpose. Evaluating develops mechanisms to monitor environmental, system, and policy changes, evaluates the impact, and uses findings for future planning efforts.
The health care policy process includes three stages, the formulation stage, the legislative stage, and the evaluate and modify stage, where they signify all the detailed choices and activities that are needed for a policy to be suggested, contemplated, and lastly either applied and/or set to the side.
The policy process cannot continue to then next step without the prior step being done correctly, nor can it continue with leaders that do not have visions to see the potential outcomes. Each step determines whether the next process can continue, and each process is evaluated within itself to make sure that details evolve more clearly and organized for the next phase. The leaders are important as well because they make it possible to take the policy process to the next step. Health care is always changing and needs these trail blazer bureaucrats to streamline the process and work on new ideas. Health care policy processing is an orderly process of defining community health problems, identifying unmet needs and surveying resources to meet them, establishing priority goals, that are realistic and feasible and projecting administrative action to accomplish the purpose of proposed programs. This continuous cycle lead by health care professionals will ultimately improve organizations and most health care aspects for this
country.

References
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Casebeer, A. L., & Hannah, K. J. (1998). The process of change related to health policy shift: Reforming a health care system. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 11(7), 566-566+. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234325209?accountid=458
Peterson, M. A. (1997). The policy process in health care. The American Behavioral Scientist, 40(3), 341-353. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214748930?accountid=458