Policy Creation: A Critical Concept for Public Health - Essay Sample

Introduction

The creation of policy is usually vital in the implementations of health action or actions. The dominant discussions are that policy is not in any way an intervention for public health but rather facilities its development and applications taking into account all the processes of policymaking and their essential theories relevant for the possible influence of policy change. The policy itself is a critical concept for practitioners and other scholars. The policy is can, therefore, be understood as the government's actions and intentions to evaluate those actions; it can also be viewed as anything a government decides to perform or to do not; the law or the plan. According to Grundy, Q., Habibi, R., Shnier, A., Mayes, C., & Lipworth, W. (2018), a policy is a universal term employed in the description of a plan or formal decision made by the actor to obtain a specific goal. Health policy thus means a specific term applied in a structured program of action or decision that involves a health organization- a system that focuses on the positive impact on the population health. The public policy seeks to improve the living conditions of the people by keeping it safe, adequate, secure. It also explores for sustainable lifestyles, livelihoods, environments such as education, housing, data exchange, nutrition, childcare, necessary community, transportation, health, and personal services (Xue, Ye, Brewer and Spetz, 2016). In the representation below, I have indicated the relationship between health policy and legislation, finance, regulation, and practice, followed by detailed explanations below the charts.

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Visual Representation of the Relationship Between Health Policy and Legislation, Regulation, Finance, and Practice

Health Policy and Legislation

Law is among the essential kinds of regulation. They can be formed by the legislature, thus leading to primary legislation sometimes called acts or statutes, while legislation is an inclusive phrase combining the various kinds of laws. Primary legislation gives reference to acts of the federal system and normally defines broad principles and powers. However, for its implementation, it is rolled-out in secondary legislation, which carries the statutes made by local or executive government such as regulations, degrees, rules, bylaws, and orders. In secondary legislation, structures, systems, technical details are needed to effect primary legislation (Grundy et al., 2018).

For instance, in the year 2014, the government of Nigeria approved a national health statute, such as primary legislation, to offer a legal procedure for health services provision 9 Grundy et al., 2018). This act enshrined the roles of health services as well as responsibilities to various government tiers and non-governmental entities. The implementation of the law is then left to policy administration and secondary legislation. For instance, sections II of this act offer procedure for regulating technologies and health establishments. However, the acts' details are left for secondary legislation that shall diagnose details of classifications of establishments of health under the same statute based on:

• The function and role within the health system
• The location and size of the communities they intend to serve.
• The level and nature of health services they are capable of providing to their demographic and geographical reach.

The urge for structuring health services delivery corresponding to national standards within coordinated frameworks, and in the incident of the creation of private health whether or not the establishment is beneficial. Below is an instance of how legislation and laws are applied in health sectors.

Health Policy and Regulation

A regulation under health policy can be defined in three distinct perspectives. The first one views regulation as the promulgation of policies by the government supported by monitoring and enforcement mechanisms normally performed by a specialist agency of the public. The second definition presents regulation as any means of direct economic intervention by the state or any form that it might take. In contrast, the third definition singles out other regulatory tools used by a government to influence or control health system conduct. Some of the possible organizational tools are tobacco taxes, drug pricing methods, and nursing school quota, and disclosure regulations, including health providers disclosing specific information to clients to encourage them toward making better choices Grundy, Q., Habibi, R., Shnier, A., Mayes, C., & Lipworth, W. (2018).

The third definition reflects that both non-government organizations and government actors increasingly conduct regulation. This aspect states that the government has a choice of whether to regulate themselves or allow non-government institutions to lead the process. The best instance is a situation where the government permits a group of health professionals to govern themselves or set codes of conduct for their members.

Health Policy and Finance

Most states, such as the UK establish health policy around their financial budget to :Enhance budget transparency and its accountability in the usage

• To specify the financial stability of the executive and legislature
• To make sure that the monetary policies have enough power
• To expand the constitutional needs for the systems of the budget as well as reforming the system and ensuring macroeconomic balance. A health policy implementer should take into account the following:

Health Policy and Practice

Ideally, health policy and practice should depend on each other for unity of various disciplines as well as combining tacit and academic knowledge to backup public health. However, this idea may practically appear difficult to properly connect academic researches, public health policy and practice. The connections between health policy, research, and practice is imperative in obtaining the most concrete evidence in public health (Zain, S., & Majid, U. (2018).

Experience

From my personal experience, we need laws, legislation and regulation to help in the processes of health planning to create a valid roadmap for the operation and to implement mechanisms that can help in the translation of essential objectives of the health policy by setting standards, the requirements, and sanction use as well as incentives to create harmony in health systems. Health policy might also help a country to plan better with her financial services to avoid wastage of funds by ensuring transparency.

References

De Pietro, C., & Francetic, I. (2018). E-health in Switzerland: The laborious adoption of the federal law on electronic health records (EHR) and health information exchange (HIE) networks. Health Policy, 122(2), 69-74. doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2017.11.005

Grundy, Q., Habibi, R., Shnier, A., Mayes, C., & Lipworth, W. (2018). Decoding disclosure: Comparing conflict of interest policy among the United States, France, and Australia. Health Policy, 122(5), 509-518. doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2018.03.015

Xue, Y., Ye, Z., Brewer, C., & Spetz, J. (2016). Impact of state nurse practitioner scope-of-practice regulation on health care delivery: Systematic review. Nursing Outlook, 64(1), 71-85.doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2015.08.005

Zain, S., & Majid, U. (2018). Introduction to Knowledge Translation in Health Care Research. Undergraduate Research in Natural and Clinical Science and Technology Journal, 2, 1-5. 10.1186/1478-4505-8-37