National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) and its role in determining health policy

This paper discusses the role of National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) in determining health policy and its mission, vision, and goals. It also talks about the leadership, collaboration, and association of the organization and its current advocacy and policy interested related efforts.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS) is the membership
organization that represents the 2000 or more clinical nursing specialists of America working in
healthcare settings clinics, ambulatory services and universities and works towards the
implementation of improvements so that quality healthcare could be provided to all (NACNS,
2019). This organization was developed in 1995 on the campus of Indiana University of the
United States so that the voice of specialist nursing professionals could be provided with a
platform and after the inception of this organization, it presents itself as an important part of the
American nursing industry (Halpern et al., 2014). Among other duties, the NACNS member
nursing professionals works towards making the care process ethically and professionally honest
and effective. It also helps the American health industry to determine several policy and strategic
changes so that nursing interventions and policies used by specialist nursing professionals while
implementing evidence based nursing practice could be updated and the improvement could be
used to provide patients with quality healthcare (NACNS, 2019). Further, this organization
believes that it is the responsibility of nursing professionals and nursing process to maintain
quality of the care process and provide patients with positive healthcare journey (NACNS,
2019). Hence, this organization has been chosen for this paper as a professional nursing
organization and its role in determining health policy will be mentioned.
Mission, Vision and Goal of National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists (NACNS)
The NACNS is a platform to strengthen the voice of nursing professionals of USA and
associated territories so that their needs, rights and responsibilities could be determined and
discrimination present in the process could be eliminated. Further it also helps to safeguard and

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advocate the needs of the healthcare professionals by playing an important role in taking
initiatives to implement policies in healthcare facilities throughout USA (NACNS, 2019).
The vision of NACNS as an organization is to engage the entire nursing force in a strong
unit in engaging customers so that rapid and quick transformation of the healthcare system could
be achieved (NACNS, 2019).
The mission of NACNS on the other hand, is to make the process effective and improve
the nursing process so that health improvement could be achieved by every care service users.
Further it also aims to provide strategic goals and objectives to the nursing associations
throughout the country and hence it works as a mean to transform the nursing profession and
healthcare process (Halpern et al., 2014).
The strategic goal of NACNS are as follows:
 It aims to increase the membership of nursing professionals with NACNS.
 Promote their special practice and goals
 It aims to increase the chances so that the nursing values and stimulate their usage
so that health and helathcare could be improved.
 Determine the role of nursing professionals in patient health improvement so that
in consumer’s healthcare journey, nursing professionals could become an integral
stakeholders.
Membership of the organization also offers a wide range of benefits to the healthcare
professionals of the country and the membership is determined based on the type of nursing
professionals. Such as for nursing professionals associated with non-profit organizations benefits

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are different from nursing professionals working in governmental or private healthcare facilities
(NACNS, 2019). Further, it was also mentioned that the organization provides institutional and
organizational membership and starting from students, associates and retired nursing
professionals are part of this organization, with active CNS active nursing professionals.
Therefore this is the range of professionals that belong to NACNS organization.
Current organization leadership, collaboration and association
Leadership is an important pillar for the growth and development of any organization and
associated members as it provides them the opportunity to upgrade their skills and hence, works
as an umbrella under which such members can grow (NACNS, 2019). Dr. Anne Hysong is the
president of the NACNS, with 12 years of her healthcare experience and holds experience of an
educator as well as a clinician and hence, her leadership helps student nurses and registered
nurses with strategies so that they can overcome their mild burnout and could serve the society.
There are several helathcare organizations associated with NACNS that focuses on several
aspects of healthcare such as effective communication, authentic relationship and therefore,
conflict of interest among the collaborated organization is common (NACNS, 2019). Therefore,
nursing leadership plays an important role to mitigate the conflict of interest. However, Dr.
Hysong, being a good and effective speaker and educator was able to diminish all the conflict of
interest present among the collaborative organizations and if any conflict affected the process of
the organization, reviewed or resolved them using debates and communication as the sole
method so that conflict related debates could be used to invent new policies and strategies using
which nursing professionals and their conflicts could be decreased (NACNS, 2019).

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Current advocacy and policy interested related efforts
NACNS believes that method of advocacy is the primary pillar of nursing profession as it
is the primary role of the nursing professionals to advocate for the benefit of patients within their
workplace, community or their society however, in this advocacy, legislative and political
advocacy was not included (NACNS, 2019). It was stated in the NACNS mission that as per the
public of USA, nursing is the most important and trusted profession and they provide their
clients with their needs and knowledge so that they can continue to be healthy and fit and hence,
they advocate for patients advocacy so that broad appreciation and understanding of the
healthcare delivery could be understood by the policy makers (NACNS, 2019).
The primary policy for which the NACNS organization is advocating is the health system
reform so that the quality of the healthcare process could be improved and patients from all over
the states could be provided with quality healthcare and interventions (NACNS, 2019). This
organization believes that health is a basic human rights and this organization focuses on the
patient protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) as discussion about these important
issues are followed by the NACNS and associates. Hence, it advocates about the policies and
healthcare improvement related acts for the benefit of the patients and hence it collaborates with
every nursing organization, professional and service users so that effective and accurate care
could be delivered in the healthcare organizations of America (Tastan et al., 2014).
Conclusion
Nursing is one profession in which the professionals are completely trusted by the care
service users and hence, they advocate for the legislative changes for the quality improvement of
the healthcare processes. This paper discusses one such nursing organization, NACNS and

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discusses their mission and vision statement so that it could advocate for the benefit of the
nursing professionals and associated patients. Further, the leadership process and the decision
making of this organization was discussed which imparts the organization with the ability to
influence policy changes and advancements.

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