Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal

Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal

 

Opioid use disorder (OUD) has remained a health issue among veterans. The challenges of warzones, including physical trauma or acute pain, make veterans one of the groups at risk of developing OUD. Although opioid prescription has been falling in the US in the last ten years, OUD remains a serious problem in the veteran population (Dembek, Chekol, & Wu, 2020). OUD has negative implications on veterans’ health outcomes. Opioid misuse is significantly related to heroin initiation among military veterans and can lead to death following overdose. Moreover, the non-medical use of opioids in the veteran population can lead to addiction and opioid dependency (Dembek, Chekol, & Wu, 2020). Although the Veteran Health Administration has actively been addressing this issue, the high prevalence of OUD among military veterans indicates the adoption of new initiatives to safeguard the health of this vulnerable population. The paper proposes a health policy and guidelines to help address OUD among veterans.

Proposed Policy

A policy that can help address veterans’ opioid use disorder problem is the standardization of care provision within psychiatric and medical care settings offering OUD treatment. One guideline to achieve standardized care in VA and non-VA treatment facilities is to develop quality metrics (Madras et al., 2020). Agencies that accredit or license substance abuse treatment centers can use these metrics to assess programs. Another guideline is to halt funding, licensing, and accrediting OUD treatment not founded on evidence. Reducing no-value or low-value care preserves scarce resources for services that effectively improve patients’ health outcomes (Madras et al., 2020). Lastly, the proposed policy involves incentivization of facilities to follow up veterans after discharge. Comment by Toni: This is a great concept. However, you need to develop a clear policy. A policy should have a specific statement that provides the goal of the policy. It should also present a scope which identifies individuals that the policy is aimed at. It should also include evidence-based practice guidelines which are the clear steps that will lead to achievement of the policy’s goal. Here is a policy development example tha you might find helpful: Policy Statement: All Flexpath 6026 students must successfully complete three assessments in order to successfully complete the course. Scope: Who will be responsible for carrying out the practice guidelines? Notice how the policy is aimed at a specific group? It does not include all flexpath students or all Capella students. That is the policy’s scope. The policy statement has a specific goal – to successfully complete the course. Practice Guidelines: 1. All students will have three attempts to successfully complete each assessment. 2. Students will have 12 weeks to complete the course. 3. All assessments will be evaluated using the scoring guide for each assessment. Notice how the guidelines provide clear steps for meeting the goal of the policy – which is to successfully complete the course.