N3375 Health Policy & Legal Aspect

Module 1 Assignment #1: Legislator E-mail Exercise

Submit by 2359 (CT) Saturday of Module 1
Name:

Valeria Razo

Date:

4/14/2016

Overview: Legislator E-mail Exercise

To take a proactive role in nursing policy, you will prepare an email to your legislator about an current nursing
issue. You must first identify your legislators. Then you will write a concise, professionally worded e-mail to
one of the state-level legislators about a current nursing issue that is important to you. You will:
1. Find your top legislator in your county. You will only write your email to the top legislator. You must only
use the legislator in the state you are licensed in.
2. Complete the graphic organizer on this assignment document as well. The boxes will expand for you.
If you click in them the movable box appears and you can expand.
3. Write your final e-mail in the space provided on this assignment document.
4. Submit the email that you have prepared for your legislator into your assignment dropbox in
Blackboard. It is not necessary for you to actually send your email to you legislator unless you
choose to do so.

Performance Objective:
Identify the ways nurses can personally take part in shaping future nursing care.

Rubric
Use this rubric to guide your work on the assignment, Legislator E-mail.
Task

Accomplished

Proficient

Needs Improvement

Writing and Sending the E-mail

Write an e-mail to personal statelevel legislator about a healthcare
or nursing issue discussed in this
modules content, and send the email by the required deadline. Will
deduct 5 points if Graphic Decision
Making Tool provided is not
completed.
(Total 60 points)

E-mail conveys a
concern about current
issue, uses correct a
greeting and closing and
submitted on time.

E-mail conveys a
concern about an issue,
uses a greeting and
closing with no
significant errors, and is
submitted on time.
(40 points)

E-mail does not address

a specific issue OR the
greeting or closing
contains at least one
significant error OR it is
not sent on time.
(0-20 points)

Quality of the E-mail

E-mail is clear, concise, and gives
an example of how the issue affects
the students practice.
(Total 40 points)

E-mail addresses a
specific issue, includes
at least one personal
example, is concise,
and is well-organized.

E-mail is concise,
addresses an issue, and
includes an example but
is not connected to the
students practice. Does

E-mail is unclear OR too

long OR does not
include a specific
example.
(0 points)

2015 College of Nursiing

No greeting-5pts/No
closing-5/pts deductions
No graphic decision
making tool-5/pts
deduction
(60 points)

N3375 Health Policy & Legal Aspect

(40 points)

not include personal

example
(20 point)

A. Identifying Your Legislators: Find out who your legislators are at the state level. (For students located in
Texas, use the Texas Legislature Online link located in Resource to find your representives. For students in
other states, use a search engine to locate your legislators.) If you do not live in Texas you can google search
your counties legislative system. You only need the top legislator that you are going to address your issue to.
If email information is not available then you would only place their physical address.
Record their names, titles, and contact information here: Type information into text box.

The Honorable John Whitmire

P.O. Box 12068
Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711
(512) 463-0115

2015 College of Nursiing

803 Yale Street

Houston, Texas 77007
(713) 864-8701
(713) 864-5287 (fax)

N3375 Health Policy & Legal Aspect

B. Using a Graphic Organizer to Selecting an Issue: Identify a current nursing issue from lecture material
important to you and your practice. To help you begin organizing your thoughts, complete the following graphic
organizer.Type right into the boxes.

Safe Patient
Handling

Nurses have been

identified in the top
ranked occupations for
work-related
musculoskeletal
disorders.

High-risk patient
handling tasks cause
significant postural
stressors on the spine
and upper extremities
acute musculoskeletal
injury.

Patients have a
higher risk for injury or
fall when being
manually handled by
staff.

Provide Nurses and health care

professionals with proper equipment to
reduce the use staff manual handling.

Reduce
occupational
related injuries.

2015 College of Nursiing

Reduce the long

term effects of
handling patients.

Patients will feel

safer when being
transferred, and
reduce risk for fall
and injury.

N3375 Health Policy & Legal Aspect

C. Writing the E-mail: Write an e-mail explaining the importance of this issue to your practice. Limit the e-mail
to one page. You may not use all of the details you developed in the graphic organizer above; use the ones
that you think create the strongest and most persuasive e-mail.
Follow the format of the sample e-mail located in the Resource section of the course. (The format must be
strictly followed, especially for how to address the legislator and inclusion of your home address to classify you
as a constituent.)
Be sure to edit your e-mail for spelling, grammar, and word usage. Read it aloud, and/or get a friend or relative
to read it and provide feedback. You will not be sending this to your legislator as part of this assignment
but you may choose to send it to them on your own to make them aware of the issue you have addressed.
Write your final e-mail in the space provided below.
Space for you to write your final e-mail to your legislator: type directly into the text box below. Your
Coach will grade your email from this assignment document. Box will expand.

To: John Whitmire

Subject: Safe patient handeling
The Honorable John Whitmire
Texas Senate
Dear Senator John,
Throughout the years there have been many changes in medical field. However, nurses and other health care
professionals are still manually transferring patients. Nurses are among the highest identified occupation for workrelated musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, hospitals have to use funding for nurses leaving for short or at times
long term disability. High-risk patient handling tasks can cause significant postural stressors on the spine and lead to
long term effects. Patient also have a higher risk for injury or fall when being handled by staff. Employers, like
hospitals, should provide equipment for safe use of handling patients. Incorporating this would result in reduced
occupations related inuries, reduce the long term effects of the physical demand of our occupation, and will benefit
patients by reducing the risk of falls and injuries.
Thank you for your time, and I hope we can count on your support.
Sincerely,

Valeria Razo
4415 Plumeria Ave.
Baytown, Texas 77521

2015 College of Nursiing

N3375 Health Policy & Legal Aspect

Submit this entire Assignment Document into Blackboard using the directions below.

Submitting Your Assignment:

Click Module 1: Assignment in the Module 1 folder.

Scroll down to Assignment Submission. Click Browse My Computer and navigate to your
Desktop where you saved your paper. Select the final version of your paper to upload from
your computer.

Click Submit at the bottom of the Assignment Submission screen and your saved document
assignment will appear in the gradebook with a green exclamation point that alerts your
Academic Coach that your assignment is ready for grading.

2015 College of Nursiing