walden university- Nurs 6050 Advocacy- week 7-

There have been many health care policies proposed in the last five years. One policy that has been proposed is the Defending Access to Mental Health Care Act. This proposal is meant to ensure loan repayments and adequate staffing for inpatient pediatric mental health facilities (Congress, 2019). The background for this proposal is that there is an insufficient number of healthcare providers working in the pediatric mental health field. Without proper staff in these facilities, and the ability to be able to make loan payments for an inpatient mental health facility, children are going untreated. I believe there is sufficient evidence to support this proposed policy. Up to twenty percent of children meet criteria to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder in the United States (Bardach et al, 2018). With numbers this high, there needs to be increased staff with proper training to care for these patients. In pediatric hospitals, up to ten percent of patients have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition, but the quality of care provided to these patients is not well known (Bardach et al, 2018). Ensuring an adequate number of staff that is properly trained in pediatric mental health will improve safety for staff and patients, as well as improve the care for the patients in these facilities (O’Connor, 2017). With the Defending Access to Mental Health Care Act, struggling youth will be able to receive the care that they need by being able to pay for access to care and having proper staffing in the facility.

References

Bardach, N., Burkhart, Q., Richardson, L., Roth, C., Murphy, M., Parast, L., Gidengil, C., Marmet, J., Britto, M., & Mangione-Smith, R. (2018). Hospital-based quality measures for pediatric mental health care. Pediatrics, 141(6),DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-3554

Congress. (2019). Defending access to mental health care act. Retrieved from

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senat…

O’Connor, T. (2017). Implementation of a pediatric behavioral staffing algorithm in an acute hospital: a best practice implementation project. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 15(11), 2799-2814. doi: 10.11124/JBISRIR-2017-0