Question 1) The government plays a big role when it comes to policies that affect a person's health, Some examples

include seatbelt laws, food safety, and drug use. Do you think the government plays too big of a role? Why? If not, what else do you think the government should do? In response to the question of do I think that the government plays too big of a role in making policies that affect a persons health I have to say yes and no, and this is my rationale. On any given day I would initially respond by saying that the government is too involved in our lives and that they should back away and let a person make his or her own decisions. An individual is, or at least once was, capable of making a decision relating to his or her safety and then accepting the ramifications of that decision. On the flip side, it is Americans themselves that are relying on the government to provide their healthcare and not always making good decisions, it is the rest of America that pays the bill. Americans expect, and are insistent upon top dollar, high quality, never ending health care provision; this is unsustainable. Americans were willing to spend escalating proportions of both personal and public dollars on an increasing array of medical services hoping for magic bullets to cur all ills (Pender, 2011). A person might make a decision to not wear a seatbelt (if the law was not in effect), get into an accident and suffer from far greater injury that if a seatbelt was worn, and that injury requires hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to treat, and with the potential still for a less than desirable outcome. If Americans are going to make decisions that affect their health and expect and feel entitled to never ending, multi-million dollar treatment to treat these decisions, then absolutely I feel that the government should have some sort of role in tailoring policy relating to a persons health. I can tell you that since the lift of the helmet law in Michigan I have personally at work cared for 5 people with devastating head injuries whose lives are completely altered forever, when if they would have been wearing a helmet they would have only likely sustained broken limbs. The government is a double edged sword relating to deep involvement in personal health decisions and policy. The door was opened for this with the development of Medicare and Medicaid and the problem has ballooned. If every American was expected to attain and maintain his or her own insurance, such as with care insurance, there would be more competition and lower prices and less of a need to have government so deeply imbedded into our personal lives. Question 2) This weeks reading focuses on protecting and promoting health through social and environmental change. Can you identify a program/policy in your practice area that fit into these these categories? On a scale pertaining to the unit in which I work, we use environmental changes within daily care to promote health and prevent further illness. Within Intensive Care Units there has been a shifting paradigm regarding sedation, mechanical ventilation and wakefulness. Increased sedation among mechanically ventilated patients not only leads to increased ventilator days, but also increased risk for delirium and its long term effects. Environmentally we use increased lighting and ambient noise during the day time to promote a day and night cycles and we provide uninterrupted rest periods from staff and visitors alike. We also implement early mobility within the patients environment to assist with delirium reduction and ventilator time. We alter the environment to reduce delirium thereby increasing health and preventing the horrible effects and prolonged hospital course associated with delirium.

Pender, N. J., Murdaugh, C. L. & Parsons, M. A. (2011). Health Promotion in Nursing Practice (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.