Assessment 2 Instructions:
Biopsychosocial Population
Health Policy Proposal
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Develop a 2-4 page proposal for a
policy that should help to improve
health care and outcomes for your
target population.
Introduction
Note: Each assessment in this course
builds on the work you completed in
the previous assessment. Therefore,
you must complete the assessments in
this course in the order in which they
are presented.
Cost and access to care continue to be
main concerns for patients and
providers. As technology improves
our ability to care for and improve
outcomes in patients with chronic and
complex illnesses, questions of cost
and access become increasingly
important. As a master’s-prepared
nurse, you must be able to develop
policies that will ensure the delivery
of care that is effective and can be
provided in an ethical and equitable
manner.
As a master’s-prepared nurse, you
have a valuable viewpoint and voice
with which to advocate for policy
developments. As a nurse leader and
health care practitioner, often on the
front lines of helping individuals and
populations, you are able to articulate
and advocate for the patient more
than any other professional group in
health care. This is especially true of
populations that may be underserved,
underrepresented, or are otherwise
lacking a voice. By advocating for and
developing policies, you are able to
help drive improvements in outcomes
for specific populations. The policies
you advocate for could be internal
ones (just within a specific
department or health care setting)
that ensure quality care and
compliance. Or they could be external
policies (local, state, or federal) that
may have more wide-ranging effects
on best practices and regulations.
Preparation
As you prepare to complete this
assessment, you may want to think
about other related issues to deepen
your understanding or broaden your
viewpoint. You are encouraged to
consider the questions below and
discuss them with a fellow learner, a
work associate, an interested friend,
or a member of your professional
community. Note that these questions
are for your own development and
exploration and do not need to be
completed or submitted as part of
your assessment.
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What are the relevant best
practices from a population
health standpoint (cultural
competence, disease
prevention, and interventions)
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for your chosen health issue
and vulnerable population?
• How are these best
practices relevant to your
chosen health issue and
vulnerable population?
▪ Do the best
practices make
any reference to
standards of care
or benchmarks
that should be
achieved?
• How could these best
practices be leveraged to
help inform or develop a
policy and guidelines to
improve care and
outcomes for the
vulnerable population
you are working with?
How could technology be used
to identify health concerns or
collect data that could help
health care practitioners
determine which health care
issues to focus on in a
population?
• What are the relevant
laws, regulations, or
policies for employing
any of the technology you
might find useful?
What type of policy and
guidelines would be most likely
to ensure improvements in care
and outcomes related to your
chosen health issue and
vulnerable population?
• Are there any policies in
existence that could help
inform your own policy
development?
• How might your
proposed policy and
guidelines influence the
way in which care is
accessed?
• How might your
proposed policy and
guidelines influence the
amount of access that is
available?
Assessment 2 will build on the health
issue, vulnerable population, and
position that you started to develop in
the first assessment. For Assessment
2, you will develop a proposal for a
policy and a set of guidelines that
could be implemented to ensure
improvements in care and outcomes.
Refer to the resource listed below:
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Guiding Questions:
Biopsychosocial Population
Health Policy Proposal [DOC].
Scenario
The analysis of position papers that
your interprofessional team presented
to the committee has convinced them
that it would be worth the time and
effort to develop a new policy to
address your specific issue in the
target population. To that end, your
interprofessional team has been asked
to submit a policy proposal that
outlines a specific approach to
improving the outcomes for your
target population. This proposal
should be supported by evidence and
best practices that illustrate why the
specific approaches are likely to be
successful. Additionally, you have
been asked to address the ways in
which applying your policy to
interprofessional teams could lead to
efficiency or effectiveness gains.
Instructions
For this assessment you will develop a
policy proposal that seeks to improve
the outcomes for the health care issue
and target population you addressed
in Assessment 1. If for some reason
you wish to change your specific issue
and/or target population, contact your
FlexPath faculty.
The bullet points below correspond to
the grading criteria in the scoring
guide. Be sure that your submission
addresses all of them. You may also
want to read the Biopsychosocial
Population Health Policy Proposal
Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions:
Biopsychosocial Population Health
Policy Proposal [DOC] to better
understand how each grading
criterion will be assessed.
• Propose a policy and guidelines
that will lead to improved
outcomes and quality of care
for a specific issue in a target
population.
• Advocate the need for a
proposed policy in the context
of current outcomes and quality
of care for a specific issue in a
target population.
• Analyze the potential for an
interprofessional approach to
implementing a proposed
policy to increase the efficiency
or effectiveness of the care
setting to achieve high-quality
outcomes.
• Communicate proposal in a
professional and persuasive
manner, writing content clearly
and logically with correct use of
grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.
• Integrate relevant sources to
support assertions, correctly
formatting citations and
references using APA style.
Example Assessment: You may use
the assessment example, linked in the
Assessment Example section of the
Resources, to give you an idea of what
a Proficient or higher rating on the
scoring guide would look like.
Additional
Requirements
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Length of proposal: 2-4 doublespaced, typed pages, not
including title page or reference
list. Your proposal should be
succinct yet substantive.
Number of references: Cite a
minimum of 3-5 sources of
scholarly or professional
evidence that supports the
relevance of or need for your
policy, as well as
interprofessional
considerations. Resources
should be no more than five
years old.
APA formatting: The APA Style
Paper Tutorial [DOCX] will help
you in writing and formatting
your analysis.
Competencies
Measured
By successfully completing this
assessment, you will demonstrate
your proficiency in the following
course competencies and assessment
criteria:
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Competency 1: Design
evidence-based advanced
nursing care for achieving highquality population outcomes.
• Propose a policy and
guidelines that will lead
to improved outcomes
and quality of care for a
specific issue in a target
population.
Competency 2: Evaluate the
efficiency and effectiveness of
interprofessional interventions
in achieving desired population
health outcomes.
• Analyze the potential for
an interprofessional
approach to
implementing a proposed
policy to increase the
efficiency or
effectiveness of the care
setting to achieve high
quality outcomes.
Competency 3: Analyze
population health outcomes in
terms of their implications for
health policy advocacy.
Advocate the need for a
proposed policy in the
context of current
outcomes and quality of
care for a specific issue in
a target population.
Competency 4: Communicate
effectively with diverse
audiences, in an appropriate
form and style, consistent with
organizational, professional,
and scholarly standards.
• Communicate proposal in
a professional and
persuasive manner,
writing content clearly
and logically with correct
use of grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
• Integrate relevant
sources to support
assertions, correctly
formatting citations and
references using APA
style.
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Resources: Access to Care
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https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/
blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_i
d=_358031_1&content_id=_10919381_1
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Brooks, E., Dailey, N. K., Bair, B.
D., & Shore, J. H.
(2016) Listening to the patient:
Women veterans’ insights
about health care needs, access,
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and quality in rural areas.
Military Medicine, 181(9), 976981.
Caldwell, J. T., Ford, C. L.,
Wallace, S. P., Wang, M. C., &
Takahashi, L. M.
(2016). Intersection of living in
a rural versus urban area and
race/ethnicity in explaining
access to health care in the
United States. American Journal
of Public Health, 106(8), 14631469.
Linder, J. A. & Levine, D. M.
(2016). Health care
communication technology and
improved access, continuity,
and relationships: The
revolution will be
Uberized. JAMA Internal
Medicine, 176(5), 643-644.
Peretz, P. J., Islam, N., & Matiz, L.
A. (2020). Community health
workers and covid-19 —
addressing social determinants
of health in times of crisis and
beyond. The New England
Journal of Medicine, 383(19),
e108-e108.
Silverstein, M., Hsu, H. E., & Bell,
A. (2019). Addressing social
determinants to improve
population health: The balance
between clinical care and public
health. JAMA: The Journal of the
American Medical Association,
322(24), 2379-2380.
Resources: Assessment
https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.js
p?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919382_1
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The resources provided here
are optional. You may use other
resources of your choice to prepare
for this assessment however, you will
need to ensure that they are
appropriate, credible, and valid.
The MSN Program Library Research
Guide can help direct your research.
• Borrayo, B. D., & O’Lawrence, H.
(2016). A post analysis of a
preventive and chronic
healthcare tool. Journal of
Health and Human Services
Administration, 39(1), 15-40.
• Vila Health: Resources for
Topical Research.
Resources: Pathophysiology
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sp?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919383_1
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p?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919383_1https://courserooma.ca
pella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?coursehttps://course
rooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=
_358https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listCont
ent.jsp?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919383_1
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Maulsby, C., Valdiserri, R. O.,
Kim, J. J., Mahon, N., Flynn, A.,
Eriksson, E., Jain, K. M., Enobun,
B. & Holtgrave, D. R.
(2016). The global engagement
in care convening:
Recommended actions to
improve health outcomes for
people living with HIV. AIDS
Education & Prevention, 28(5),
405-416.
Pranavchand, R., & Reddy, M.
(2016). Genomics era and
complex disorders: Implications
of GWAS with special reference
to coronary artery disease, type
2 diabetes mellitus, and
cancers. Journal of Postgraduate
Medicine, 62(3), 188-198.
Resources: Pharmacology
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blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_i
d=_358031_1&content_id=_10919384_1
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Bland, J. (2016). Where is
health care headed? Integrative
Medicine, 15(3), 16-18.
Resources: Policy
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sp?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919385_1
https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.js
p?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919385_1
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Durbin, A., Durbin, J., Hensel, J.,
& Deber, R. (2016). Barriers
and enablers to integrating
mental health into primary
care: A policy analysis. The
Journal of Behavioral Health
Services & Research, 43(1), 127139.
Gershon, R., Morris, L., &
Ferguson, W. (2016). Including
language access into Medicaid
ACO design. The Journal of Law,
Medicine & Ethics, 44(3), 492502.
McCabe, E. M., & Connolly, C.
(2019). From intention to
action: Nurses as policy
advocates for asthma care in
schools. NASN School Nurse,
34(2), 113-116.
Resources: Technology
https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.js
p?course_id=_358031_1&content_id=_10919386_1
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Ramsey, A., Lord, S., Torrey, J.,
Marsch, L., & Lardiere, M.
(2016). Paving the way to
successful implementation:
Identifying key barriers to use
of technology-based
therapeutic tools for behavioral
health care. The Journal of
Behavioral Health Services &
Research, 43(1), 54-70.
MSN-FP6026 Assessment 2 Guiding Questions
Guiding Questions
Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal
This document is designed to give you questions to consider and additional guidance to help
you successfully complete the Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal assessment.
You may find it useful to use this document as a pre-writing exercise or as a final check to
ensure that you have sufficiently addressed all the grading criteria for this assessment. This
document is a resource to help you complete the assessment. Do not turn in this document as
your assessment submission.
Propose a policy and guidelines that will lead to improved outcomes and quality of care
for a specific issue in a target population.
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Does your policy encompass the key components that will lead to improved outcomes
and quality of care for your chosen issue and target population?
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Is your policy succinct (about one paragraph)?
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Do your proposed guidelines help colleagues, stakeholders, and groups understand how
to implement your proposed policy?
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Are your policy and guidelines realistic in the context of the team, unit, or organization
you are considering?
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Are your policy and guidelines realistic in the context of the environmental factors that
exist?
Advocate the need for a proposed policy in the context of current outcomes and quality
of care for a specific issue in a target population.
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What is the current state of relevant outcomes related to your policy?
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What is the current state of the quality of care related to your policy
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Why is it important to work toward improvements in outcomes and quality of care?
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How will your policy help ensure that improvements are achieved?
Analyze the potential for an interprofessional approach to implementing a proposed
policy to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the care setting to achieve highquality outcomes.
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What are the relevant interprofessional best practices for successfully implementing your
policy?
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How will they support an increase in efficiency for achieving high-quality outcomes
relevant to your policy, chosen issue, or target population?
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How will they support an increase in effectiveness for achieving high-quality
outcomes relevant to your policy, chosen issue, or target population?
Communicate proposal in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly
and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
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MSN-FP6026 Assessment 2 Guiding Questions
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Is your writing clear and professional?
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Is your writing free from errors?
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Is your writing persuasive?
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Is your submission 2–4 pages (not including the title page and reference list)?
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and
references using current APA style.
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Did you use 3–5 sources in your assessment?
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Are the sources you used no more than five years old?
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Are your sources cited in APA format throughout?
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Have you included an attached reference list?
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Did you use the APA Style Paper Template for formatting to include running head and
title page?
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No abstract is needed for this assessment.
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Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal
Learner’s Name
Capella University
NURS-FPX6026: Biopsychosocial Concepts for Advanced Nursing Practice II
Instructor’s Name
November 1, 2021
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
2
Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal
The health care industry has come to acknowledge the rise of the opioid crisis over the
past two decades. However, this does not take away from the necessity of pain relief for patients
suffering from chronic pain, who are most often prescribed opioid treatment. Opioid treatment
does show promise in short-term trials (Sehgal et al., 2013), but long-term treatments carry with
them significant risk of addiction, adverse side effects, and prescription drug abuse (Franklin,
2014). The issue of opioid abuse and addiction is further complicated by the comorbidity of
mental health problems in patients. In this context, veterans are a particularly vulnerable
population because they often present with chronic noncancer pain while being comorbid with
mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse disorder (Sullivan
& Howe, 2013). Given this vulnerability, it is necessary to take steps to prevent or reduce the
potential for addiction or medication abuse among veterans who are prescribed long-term opioid
treatment.
Substance Abuse among U.S. Veterans: A Brief Retrospective
Opioids came to be used in the treatment of chronic pain in cancer patients as a result of
two WHO guidelines that were issued in 1985 and 1996 (Sullivan & Howe, 2013). Eventually,
the treatment was extended to chronic noncancer pain and suggested as a safe, non-addictive
method of treating pain. However, this claim was extrapolated from short-term opioid treatment
studies. The issue then becomes primarily about the lack of evidence to support the safe longterm use of opioids. Opioids carry a significant risk of addiction and an array of unpleasant side
effects (Franklin, 2014). Further, opioids also complicate matters of mental health. Opioids can
relieve pain and produce a feeling of euphoria in patients. This physical relief could
inadvertently soothe the psychological or emotional pain that a patient is experiencing. However,
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
3
this leads to the patient doubly associating the opioid drug with both physical and psychological
relief, potentially resulting in drug abuse and drug-seeking behavior. In this context, veterans’
health becomes a particularly complicated and layered issue to tackle. Many of them suffer from
chronic pain because of injuries and exposure to hazards during their military career and often
present with behavioral issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse disorder.
Veterans are seven times more likely to abuse prescription opioids than civilians (Snow &
Wynn, 2018). Further, Newhouse states that opioid medications were prescribed to over 400,000
veterans for pain relief and that approximately 1.7 million opioid medications were prescribed to
them in 2014 (as cited in Snow & Wynn, 2018), indicating that opioid treatments are quite
widespread.
Several institutes, including the American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine,
the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and the American Academy of Neurology, have
stated publicly that opioids present a significant challenge in the health care industry. These
institutes encourage raising awareness of the adverse side effects of opioid treatments, the use of
naloxone (an opioid antagonist), and proper procedure in case of an opioid overdose (The
American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine, n.d.; American Society of Addiction
Medicine, 2016; Franklin, 2014). Given how widespread the prescription of opioids is among
veterans suffering from chronic pain, it would be necessary to reevaluate the guidelines
associated with prescription as well. Further, the primary problems associated with prescription
opioids are the abuse of prescribed opioids and the transition from prescription opioids to black
market drugs such as heroin (Kolodny et al., 2015; Snow & Wynn, 2018).
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
4
In 2007, the National Drug Intelligence Center of the U.S. Department of Justice
estimated that a cumulative cost of approximately $200 billion resulted from direct and indirect
drug use in the form of lost productivity, health care, and law enforcement (as cited in Crowley
et al., 2017). Further, Ronan and Herzig note that the costs associated with opioid use disorder
were approximately $15 billion in 2012 (as cited in Crowley et al., 2017). Rydell and
Everingham and the National Institute for Drug Abuse state that money invested in preventing
drug abuse and subsequent treatment would lead to substantial savings on a national level (as
cited in Crowley et al., 2017). It is then necessary from an industry standpoint to revisit the
guidelines associated with the issue of opioid prescriptions, given the significant costs associated
with it.
An Interprofessional Approach to Substance Abuse and Health Care for Veterans
The proposed policy addressed below consists primarily of two aspects: raising public
awareness and encouraging interdepartmental communication and coordination. The first aspect
would help individuals learn about the crisis and identify potentially harmful patterns of
behavior. The second aspect would improve the condition of individuals who have been
prescribed long-term opioid treatment.
Raising Public Awareness
To approach the issue of the opioid crisis, it is important to understand it as a problem of
scale (given how widespread the issue is) and as a problem of understanding among the public
and those receiving opioids. Raising awareness would improve the public’s understanding of the
nature of the opioid crisis and would thereby help individuals recognize how and when opioids
would be helpful. It would also improve the public’s understanding of the potential harm opioid
use might mean for an individual being treated with opioids. A committee would be formed with
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
5
physicians who specialize in pain treatment, behavioral health specialists, and senior nurses to
oversee public awareness drives and educational programs to help raise awareness in the
community. The duties of the committee would include ensuring that these drives and programs
are organized effectively and regularly, evaluating the efficacy of holding such programs, and
understanding how to improve outreach. Trained physicians would oversee the educational
programs, while nurses would provide demonstrations of the correct procedure when
administering naloxone. The programs would contain information on how to identify potential
signs of opioid misuse and addiction (such as patients obtaining their prescriptions early or
patients sharing their prescriptions with those who are close to them) and how to approach such
situations. The committee would also work in close association with the closest veterans’ affairs
office to identify and cater to veterans who require opioid treatment for chronic pain, thereby
improving their understanding of the risks involved in prescription opioids and their misuse.
Precautions and Prescriptions
It is important to critically evaluate the current state of how opioids are prescribed and to
whom they are prescribed. Further, it is necessary to address each individual patient’s physical
and behavioral needs together rather than to focus solely on the pain that a patient might
experience. Individuals with behavioral issues are more likely to be prescribed opioids than those
without. However, they are also more likely to become addicted to opioids or misuse them.
Patients who have been prescribed long-term opioid treatment would be required to meet with a
psychiatrist regularly to monitor and evaluate the risk they present for addiction and misuse. The
psychiatrist would then be required to keep the attending physician informed about the state of
the patient’s mental health and whether any further action would be required while still
maintaining the confidentiality of the conversations the patient has had with the psychiatrist.
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
6
Further, during the initial diagnosis, physicians would be required to screen patients for histories
of behavioral issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse disorders.
Certain populations such as veterans are likely to be at a higher risk of opioid addiction and
misuse. To improve patient care, it would be necessary for physicians and nurses to sensitize
themselves to these at-risk populations to better serve their health care needs. For example,
veteran populations are known to present with both behavioral issues and chronic pain resulting
from their time in the military; it would be the responsibility of the physicians and the nurses
attending to a patient to familiarize themselves with the context of the patient so as to develop a
nurturing relationship in such a situation. To enable this, human patient simulators will be made
available to health care providers to train them through simulations that would provide
knowledge that can be used in real situations.
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
7
References
American Society of Addiction Medicine. (2016). Use of naloxone for the prevention of opioid
overdose deaths. https://www.asam.org/advocacy/find-a-policy-statement/view-policystatement/public-policy-statements/2014/08/28/use-of-naloxone-for-the-prevention-ofdrug-overdosedeaths#:~:text=Naloxone%20is%20a%20remarkably%20effective,at%20the%20proper
%20low%20dosage.
Crowley, R., Kirschner, N., Dunn, A. S., & Bornstein, S. S. (2017). Health and public policy to
facilitate effective prevention and treatment of substance use disorders involving illicit
and prescription drugs: An American College of Physicians position paper. Annals of
Internal Medicine, 166(10), 733–736. https://doi.org/10.7326/M16-2953
Franklin, G. M. (2014). Opioids for chronic noncancer pain: A position paper of the American
Academy of Neurology. Neurology, 83(14), 1277–1284.
https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000000839
Kolodny, A., Courtwright, D. T., Hwang, C. S., Kreiner, P., Eadie, J. L., Clark, T. W., &
Alexander, G. C. (2015). The prescription opioid and heroin crisis: A public health
approach to an epidemic of addiction. Annual Review of Public Health, 36(1), 559–574.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122957
Sehgal, N., Colson, J., & Smith, H. S. (2013). Chronic pain treatment with opioid analgesics:
Benefits versus harms of long-term therapy. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 13(11),
1201–1220. https://doi.org/10.1586/14737175.2013.846517
Snow, R., & Wynn, S. T. (2018). Managing opioid use disorder and co-occurring posttraumatic
stress disorder among veterans. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health
Services, 56(6), 36–42. https://doi.org/10.3928/02793695-20180212-03
Copyright ©2018 Capella University. Copy and distribution of this document are prohibited.
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Sullivan, M. D., & Howe, C. Q. (2013). Opioid therapy for chronic pain in the US: Promises and
perils. Pain, 154(Suppl 1), S94–100.
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204477/
The American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine. (n.d.). Naloxone public policy
statement: The use of naloxone for the prevention of opioid overdose deaths.
https://www.aoaam.org/resources/Documents/AOAAM_NALOXONE_POLICY_2015.pd
f
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