Essay Example on COVID-19: Global Pandemic with Over 1 Million Deaths

Coronavirus is a respiratory disease that spreads through coming into contact with an infected person or surface. The virus was first discovered in Wuhan, china when few people tested positive for the virus (Bergren et al. 2020). Within a short time, the virus broke international borders, reaching almost all the countries in the world. The virus has been causing havoc across the globe, causing deaths of over 1 million people and causing a collapse in the world. In America, the situation is no different since it has recorded over 1.3 million positive cases and over 100,000 deaths within five months. Through the ministry of health, the government has been forced to put strict measures to curb the spreading of the deadly virus. The provision of information has been essential in fighting the spread of the COVID-19 virus (Verma, 2020). Through the media, the government has spread out the necessary measures to be adhered to, to control the spread of the coronavirus. Some of the preventative measures include washing your hand with running water or using an alcohol-based sanitizer, covering your mouth when coughing, wearing masks in public places, observing social distancing in public places, and calling the hospital when showing any signs of coronavirus.

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In the fight against COVID-19, informatics has been crucial since it keeps the nurses informed on the latest technology and information in the nursing career. One of the sectors that have been greatly affected by informatics is the documentation of data in hospitals. The population in America has become mobile, with most of the American citizens moving for a city to city looking for better standards of living. Electronic storage of information helps in ensuring patient's data is available in each hospital in America. Furthermore, informatics is a vital sector in coordinating nursing activities around America. The ability to track workflow, staffing, and communication in hospitals helps identify areas that can be improved to assist nurses in providing quality health care for their patients. It helps in ensuring that hospitals are adequately staffed with the required number of nurses and ensuring the nurse per patient ration remains constant. Indeed adequate staffing of nurses helps ensure that patients receive the necessary treatment without the nurses being overworked. Today, informatics is an essential tool in deciding the best health care procedure for a patient through a massive database of information collected on a patient (Kissler et al. 2020). Data collected over time can be easily analyzed by doctors and nurses to develop a proper diagnosis for an illness.

Indeed, the role of informatics in fighting COVID-19 is evident through how technology has helped in keeping track of patients suffering from the disease. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, all patient information has been recorded and stored in the healthcare database. This has helped track the number of positive cases, deaths, and those recovered from the virus. Furthermore, informatics has helped in monitoring potential COVID-19 patients. Nurses and doctors can track down people who could have come into contact with the positive patient through the vast database of information on patients. Indeed, informatics has helped in providing the best medical care for COVID-19 patients through extensive information on diseases that are present in hospitals. In most cases, most recovered patients have been treated according to the symptoms they show during the first fourteen days. All the information and symptoms of various diseases are present in hospital computers and accessible to any medical personnel in the hospital. In some countries such as Spain and Italy, informatics has been a lifesaver as it has helped track COVID-19 patients and has drastically reduced the number of positive patients. Certainly, informatics has revolutionized the healthcare system and improve the level of healthcare provision in American hospitals (Mehta et al. 2020).

The various measures and methods that have been used to contain the deep spread of the COVID-19 have been well coordinated to help people across the globe as governments have come up with innovations in every modern-day. The informatics skills for the healthcare providers have contributed to the added advantage as the nurses combine with the external government provisions and put the danger of the disease spreading in control. The programing knowledge and communication skills, which are the basic requirements of a nursing career, have perfectly blended with the current technology to ease the pressure. The states have come up with helplines, where people who suspect to have the disease symptoms can make direct communication to the necessary offices and healthcare centers. The face of technology has created a doctor-patient connection where the physicians can reach patients across the country through an audiovisual technology where they can see the patient's condition and give directives on the immediate cause of action to contain the situation before things get out of hand (Bergren et al. 2020). The technology companies have also implemented some symptoms-tracking devices that are of aid to limit interactions in the social areas for patients undergoing the early stages of COVID-19. The tools have enabled them to contain the victims in various healthcare centers and give them the necessary attention and medication to help quicken their recoveries. It is through communication skills by the nurses where patients feel accommodated, and they provide the actual and real situations that they are undergoing to be able to get help. It has also enabled the two parties to create a rapport that has given an amicable solution.

Experience in the repeated cases from people in every corner of the state has equipped the healthcare workers with the necessary knowledge to handle familiar instances of the same diseases. The nurses' competence in working with the health data systems has enabled the government to keep consistent data and monitor every progress the employees have made (Verma, 2019). The state has also identified the various areas that are majorly affected by the disease and have directed resources and healthcare workers towards the people of the same quality and quantity as the situations on the ground. There have been variations in the number of cases where they began with a breakout but can now be said to gradually be increasing as the measures have aided to ease the spread.

Various non-governmental organizations and health bodies have given recommendations to handle the global pandemic and also for the sake of the future, which include:

• They are adopting sanitation from a personal level to the environment and places of work.
• Provision of adequate supplies on the aspect of hygiene practices, including personal protective equipment.
• Coordination of government officials with the healthcare personnel to handle current and future health crises.
• Increment of healthcare facilities as they play a significant role in sustaining the well-being of people across the world.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the healthcare workers have a critical role to play in the society that calls for more of their experience, knowledge, and will to serve (Kissler et al. 2020). Equipping themselves with the informatics skills have also proven critical as the current pandemic has shown the importance of each part of it. The interpersonal skills, communication skills, and ability to solve problems is a crucial addition to the academic knowledge of a nursing career through which COVID-19 can be contained.

References

Bergren, M. D., Maughan, E. D., VanDenBrink, R., Foster, B., & Carveth, L. (2020). Nursing Informatics and School Nursing: Specialists Wanted. NASN School Nurse, 1942602X20928347.

Kissler, S. M., Tedijanto, C., Lipsitch, M., & Grad, Y. (2020). Social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 epidemic. medRxiv.

Mehta, P., McAuley, D. F., Brown, M., Sanchez, E., Tattersall, R. S., & Manson, J. J. (2020). COVID-19: consider cytokine storm syndromes and immunosuppression. The Lancet, 395(10229), 1033-1034.

Verma, M. P., & Gupta, S. (2019). Competency in informatics for nursing professional in india: Imbibing the tech-culture among nursing professionals. International Journal of Nursing Education, 11(1), 67-73.