Overview: Health professionals should be familiar with existing policies related to health, recognize when policy initiatives are necessary, and advocate for or against policies being proposed or currently in place.

Prompt: Begin this assignment by selecting a state, national, or international healthcare policy and briefly describing it.

When choosing your policy, remember the focus of the assignment is to identify a legal or governmental healthcare policy, which is different from an organizational (e.g., hospital) policy. To clarify, an organization like a hospital may have developed a “care of a central line policy” specific to that particular organization, but the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an example of a legal or governmental policy that all individuals and organizations, regardless of function, must observe.

After identifying a legal or governmental healthcare policy for analysis, develop a narrative that explains why you chose the selected policy, lists three key stakeholders you would like to interview about the policy, and explains how each individual is related to or affected by the policy. Your instructor will approve your policy and interview suggestions for use in your final project.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

•   Summarize the policy that is the focus of your evaluation. Include the name, its purpose, and when it was created.
•   Explain your rationale for choosing the policy. Does it have personal or professional relevance?
•   Identify at least three stakeholders of the policy that you might interview, and discuss how they are affected by or related to the policy.
  Rubric
  Guidelines for Submission: Your paper must be a 1- to 2-page (not including title and reference pages) Microsoft Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and use of the most recent APA standards for formatting and referencing. Include a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources.