Nurse Practitioner S Role in Addressing the Gap in Mental Health Essay

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Mental Health Disparities in the U.S.

The most frequently unaddressed and critical matter is mental health in ethnic and racial minority communities. The American Indians/Alaska Natives, Blacks, Asian-Americans, and Blacks are populations that are over-represented are at particularly at risk for mental health disparities. The minority individuals may also experience undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed symptoms for linguistic, cultural or historical reasons. Attention has not been given the needs of racial and ethnic minorities about mental health disparities and inadequate provision of linguistically and culturally appropriate care in these communities demonstrates a great and clear need for encouraging collaboration. In essence, health care institutions need to find ways of closing this gap because it is widening and increases the mortality rates of the affected communities. Both the federal government and mental health care practitioners need to support existing legislation and regulation that will see to the improvement of health and well-being of minorities.

Background

Mental health disparities have sheer magnitude and huge social, and economic burdens are placed on communities and families, and this calls for a global and nationwide mental health initiatives. The reason being treatment initiatives are cost effective and cares for most people with mental disparities exists and all countries can implement them. However, policy makers are facing the challenge of how to increase access to quality health care related to mental disparities and anchored in the communities where these people live. Mental health care systems in many countries are undergoing reforms or have initiated moves from traditional institutional care to local, unrestricted, and humane. The analysis of such country processes, lessons have been drawn to inform policy and program development. Many countries have converged together to talk about the opportunities present in their continents. Additionally, they examine the evidence for prevention, treatment, and care to enable them to be in better positions to develop effective plans for addressing the menace of mental health.

Developing mental health care requires the consideration of experiences from various countries coupled with newly emerging scientific studies. The factors have shown that actions addressing mental health disparities in populations are beneficial. The benefits are direct of services in decreasing associated symptoms of mental health disparities; reducing the overall burden of the disease through lowering mortality and disability; and improves the productivity, functioning and life quality of people affected. Globally, the interventions of mental health disparities benefit them through decreasing the burden.

Issues

In public health policy, the issues that are of great concern in mental health disparities are increasing the number of mental health professionals for the racial and ethnic minority. Secondly, it is the creating a workforce that is culturally competent to meet the needs of the minority populations expanding at a very high rate in the United States (Halter & Varcarolis, 2013). Mental health disciplines lack racial and cultural diversity, and this has increased the number of mental health disparities in the United States. Therefore, it is vital for organizations to address this need of having a reliable workforce regarding size and quality to help in dealing with the health problems linked to the minority communities.

The other arising problem is the inadequate geographical distribution that leads to poor health care services accorded to such minority groups. The only federal program addressing the diversity issue is the SAMHSA's Minority Fellowship Program, the Health Resource, and Service Administration's (HRSA) Graduate Psychology Education Program. The APA has also contributed to the establishment and continuation of each of programs above. The access and outcomes to health care encounter increasing gaps; this is a significant challenge for the nation's mental health care for ethnic and racial minorities.

Proposed Solutions and Effects

The issues that arise concerning mental health disparities is the elimination of the disparities in status and care by using psychological and behavioral research and services that have cultural and linguistic components. Among physicians, educators, mental and behavioral health providers, community leaders, families, and government agencies need to collaborate in ensuring the development and implementation of culturally and linguistically component. Furthermore, evidence-based prevention should be noted, and early interventions and treatment sought to facilitate a healthy environment. The research and development department should increase their scope through examining complexities and intersections of the multiple identities like disability, socioeconomic status, and the immigrant status. Therefore will know how this contributes to psychological health.

The relationships and programs foster should be positive within the ethnic and racial minorities' communities. By so doing, these increases the awareness chances of mental health disorder issues and hence, prevent the environment factors that place individuals at risk. The federal government and other financial institutions supporting such programs should increase funding for training to be accorded to health professionals dealing with mental health disparities.

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Thereby, the trained professionals will become competent linguistically and culturally. These competencies incorporate attitudes, skills, and policies to ensure consumer and family needs are effectively addressed (Betancourt, et al., 2015). Therefore, they will use diverse beliefs, values, and sexual orientations plus backgrounds varying from religion, race, language, and ethnicity. Funding agencies should advocate for the state, local, and national to incorporate linguistic and cultural competence guidelines into the programs proposal for ethnic and racial minority, families, and youth. Besides, collaboration should be increased across funding organizations that are involved in ethnic and racial minority resilience research. Policies and programs developed and implemented need to be based on psychological and behavioral behavior research. By doing this, all ethnic and racial minorities will be empowered through cultural and linguistic informed and evidence-based strategies (American Psychological Association, 2015). From this, it is evident that leaders should originate, innovate, inspire, challenge it, have long-term views, and develop all which leads to change in the health care system.

Leadership Needed to Promote Change

Leadership in the promotion of change in hospitals requires individuals who are ready to compromise and be spontaneous because as they evolve, medical practitioners need to evolve too. Therefore, the nurse leadership segment needs individuals who emphasis on influencing and improving the practice environment. The nursing knowledge acquired over the years should help them empower others, develop knowledge of nursing, facilitate learning and working with and through others in achieving organizational success. The leaders should be ready and willing to assist to patients and health practitioners in meeting organizational goals and objectives. The leader should be open, an extrovert and motivated in managing change in the organization, which implies that leaders should be in contact with caregivers to increase effectiveness and efficiency in healthcare settings (Halter & Varcarolis, 2013).

Collaboration Needed with Other Professionals

The needed collaborations with other professionals in the health care system will mean that health professionals work in small groups to provide the needed care for patients with mental health disorder. Therefore, the need arises to educate teams to use evidence-based methods such as checklists and simulation since when working in teams few errors are made. Hence, it forces processes to be standardized and planned and hence, team members will have clear roles to play and look out for each other. As such, errors will be noticed at an early stage to reduce the high chances of accidents. An interdisciplinary team also has members trusting on each other's judgments, and the safety of each other's concerns is emphasized.

Collaboration means that health organizations work together with other organizations that have the interest of mental health disorder patients at heart. Therefore, they pull resources together and look for programs to develop and implement to foster a healthy population having their mental disparities met. As such, a high premium is always placed on medical autonomy and perfection, and the historical lack of inter-professional cooperation and effective communication leads to the rise of mental health disparities. With an interdisciplinary team, health systems are sure of having quality and safety improved in acute and chronic care. Teams of non-hospitalist attending physicians, hospitalists and NPs are important in looking at mental health disparities among ethnic and racial minority communities in the United States. Other stakeholders also contribute to the quality of care accorded to mental health professionals (Hain & Fleck, 2014).

APRN (advanced practice registered nurse) implications

The implication of APRN to mental health disorder means that emphasis is laid on integrated care and treatment of those individuals with co-occurring substance use and psychiatric disparities. Additionally, integrated care emphasizes on disorder types since they are primary and must be treated. Allowing APRNs to assume their roles, which take full advantage of educational preparation mitigate the shortage of primary care physicians and in turn improve the process care. As such health care, policy development needs to be guided by patient-centric evidence and not its past delivery (Betancourt, et al., 2015). These APRN are knowledgeable and skilled in caring for mentally challenged patients and hence, they need further training to assist them in making decisions about the health of their patients. The safety of their patients comes first and hence, their work environments should be healthy to ensure no mistakes are made concerning caring for patients. The other implication of APRN….....

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