Advanced practice nursing: Shaping health through policy

Purpose: To highlight the importance of advanced practice nurses (APNs) becoming politically engaged as key to promoting the healthcare interests of patients, communities and the profession and to offer specific strategies on how to become politically competent. Data sources: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CINAHL, PubMed. Conclusions: APNs must come to see political engagement as a professional obligation and health policy as something that they can shape rather than something that happens to them. Implications for practice: The overall goal of healthcare reform is the provision of quality, safe and cost-effective healthcare for all Americans. APNs are graduate prepared clinicians that focus on health and illness management and are strategically positioned to lead the way in shaping and implementing health policy priorities.