LOBBYING FOR CHANGE

Background and Context

As a master’s level health care practitioner, you may be expected to implement plans to ensure that initiatives designed to take advantage of economic opportunities for the organization are rolled out successfully and can be sustained over multiple years. Additionally, it is important to be able to envision how an initiative could be implemented in different contexts and for different purposes to ensure the investment remains a viable and positive asset to your organization or care setting.

As a master’s level practitioner, you will often be challenged to influence the health care environment in a variety of ways. This influence can occur on a micro-level (implementing change on your unit, institution, community, or local organizations) or at a macro level (implementing change via state or federal regulations and policy). One way you can influence the health care environment is by lobbying an elected official at the local, state, or national level to adopt policies or legislation that would support positive economic and health outcomes for patients, practitioners, and organizations within the health care environment.

Instructions

In this week’s assignment, you will develop a letter to an official in your state or local government (choose the individual in the level of government that will best address your issue). The purpose of this letter is to advocate for action with regards to your chosen health care environment issue. Remember, when writing the letter, you must use your personal address and telephone number unless you are exclusively representing a group or your organization.

Be sure to address each main point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. In addition, note the requirements for document format and length and for supporting evidence. Review the assignment instructions and scoring guide to ensure you understand the work you will be asked to complete and how it will be assessed.

Overall, your assignment submission will be assessed on the following criteria:

Summarize the health care economic issue that you are addressing.
- Keep this brief but try to include details about how the issue is currently impacting the elected officials’ constituents.
Explain the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and the negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.
- Tailor this messaging to focus on the impacts in the communities and organizations that are relevant to the elected official you are writing to.
Summarize key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue, the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels, and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.
- Cite at least five current, scholarly sources that support your argument and help provide the elected official (who may not have a detailed knowledge of the health care environment) with an understanding of the issues, changes, or actions that you are proposing to drive improved outcomes.
- Identify the impact your issue has on health care institutions and health care providers at the local community, state, and national levels.
- Make sure to include information from both a health care and an economic perspective. An elected official may be more responsive to one perspective than another.
- Incorporate ethical, cultural, and diversity principles when picking resources and making recommendations for change in your assessment.
Explain how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working towards addressing the economic issue.
- Think about how your experiences (the experiences can be personal, professional, or from your team’s perspective or experience) affect how you have planned for the resources needed to implement your desired changes or actions. How did this impact your approach to conducting a risk analysis on the project?
- Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly communication standards.
  - Remember to conclude your letter with a summary of your position on the issue and a compelling reason that the elected official should act in your favor and support your issue or initiative.

Be sure to reflect on the studies and discussions you have completed so far and consider how the content of these activities might inform your approach to this assignment. Ask your instructor any questions you have about the assignment.

Additional Requirements

Audience: Make sure you are addressing your letter to an actual local or state official.
- For most states, you can use the following resource:
  - Open States. (n.d.). Find your legislators. https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
- For local officials, search your city’s government website for officials and their positions.
Length of Submission: 1–2 double spaced pages. Your letter needs to be succinct and persuasive.
Number of References: Cite at least 5 sources of evidence to support your identification of the gap. This could be public health data, a peer-reviewed journal article, or another scholarly source.
APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Note: As you revise your writing, check out the resources listed on the Writing Center’s Writing Support page.

SCORING GUIDE

Your work will be evaluated using this criteria.

VIEW SCORING GUIDE

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Analyze the effects of financial and economic factors (such as cost-benefit, supply and demand, return on investment, and risks) in a health care system on patient care, services offered, and organizational structures and operation.
- Summarize the health care economic issue that you are addressing.
Competency 2: Develop ethical and culturally equitable solutions to economic problems within a health care organization in an effort to improve the quality of care and services offered.
- Explain the positive outcomes that will occur if the issue is addressed and negative outcomes that will occur if the issue is not addressed.
Competency 3: Justify the qualitative and quantitative information used to guide economic decision making to stakeholders and colleagues.
- Summarize key information from scholarly sources to support the importance of addressing the issue, the issue’s overall impact on health care at the institutional, local, state, and national levels, and proposed changes or actions to address the issue.
Competency 4: Develop ethical and culturally equitable economic strategies to address dynamic environmental forces and ensure the future security of an organization’s resources and its ability to provide quality care.
- Explain how personal, professional, and organizational experiences have informed the resource planning and risk analysis for working towards addressing the economic issue.
Competency 5: Produce clear, coherent, and professional written work, in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
- Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.