Population Health Analysis: The Opioid Crisis Response Act

Population Health Analysis: The Opioid Crisis Response Act
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Population Health Analysis: The Opioid Crisis Response Act
Introduction
The United States government and the nation’s healthcare system is facing a health crisis in the form of increased use, dependence, and abuse of opioids and other pain relievers among the population. Cases of opioid overdose in the nation rendered the classification of the health crisis as an epidemic that requires the implementation of comprehensive and stringent interventional measures towards protecting the public from its adverse effects. Statistics by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showcase the magnitude of the problem in the United States with the number of people who abused opioids in 2017 stated as 11.4 million across the nation CITATION Ame19 \l 1033 (American Medical Association, 2019). The survey further revealed that 2.1 million people out of the 11.4 million had developed opioid-related health disorders or complications CITATION Ame19 \l 1033 (American Medical Association, 2019). The rising cases of people who misuse opioids and the subsequent health complications including fatalities necessitate the development and adoption of proactive measures across the concerned stakeholders in seeking a lasting solution for the health crisis or epidemic facing the nation. The Opioid Crisis Response Act. 2018 makes for an excellent example of an inclusive public health policy that endeavors to actualize the achievement of the nation’s healthcare system’s objective of patient safety through the provision of quality care. The bipartisan Senate-proposed healthcare policy seeks to address the underlying factors contributing to the perpetuation of the health crisis in the United States. Provided herein is thus a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the policy including its efficacy in dealing with the crisis, financial viability, objectives, and proposed advocacy strategies to ensure unbiased implementation the same.
The Opioid Response Crisis Act 2018
The Opioid Response Crisis Act 2018, as stated earlier, is a comprehensive public health policy that functions to provide an effective platform for addressing or rather dealing with the national health crisis facing the United States due to the increasing use and abuse of opioids among the population CITATION Sol18 \l 1033 (Soloner, 2018). The policy’s primary function is to curb the opioid health crisis by supporting the national, state, and territorial or regional healthcare system’s efforts towards averting the opioid epidemic. The process of implementing the policy is financed by government grants to states and tribes or populations that are most affected by the epidemic as per the 21st Century Cures Act CITATION Kat19 \l 1033 (Katrina, 2019). Recent amendments to the 21st Century Cures Act allows unlimited usage of the grants provided and not within a financial year as was previously stipulated by the same. Hence, it suffices to say that the public health policy is financially sound. The policy is further characterized by a clear description of the diverse roles played by each of the stakeholders involved in the fight against the opioid crisis. Such allocation of roles reduces the occurrence of conflict of interests discharging the overall mandate of the policy and thus allowing each of the concerned stakeholders to make use of the legal frameworks guiding their conduct as stipulated by the federal law. The policy places nurses at the frontline in the fight against the opioid health crisis and thus demanding the adoption of equally effective measures in dealing with cases of patients in pain. Both the Registered Nurses (RN) and the Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) have a significant role to play in the achievement of the policy’s objectives CITATION Ame18 \l 1033 (American Nurses Association, 2018). The care providers should ...