Public Health Nursing: Enhancing Population's Health Through Social & Nursing Practices - Essay Sample

Introduction

According to the American Public Health Association, public health nursing refers to the practice of safeguarding and enhancing the population's health using knowledge from public health science, social, and nursing practices (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2017). Just like the family members, nurses directly impact the general well-being and health of the patients. Public health nurses are registered and qualified nurses who have pursued to gain experience through training to participate in different fields like sexual health and health protection.

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Community health nursing combined nursing practice and primary health care in a community setting (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Ideally, community health nursing is sometimes known as public health nursing. In essence, the community health nurses operate mostly within the community. However, the difference between community and public health nursing transcends to the knowledge and involvement of the general population with a clinical and personal understanding of illness experiences and the health of families and individuals within the population (Chhugani, 2015).

Primarily, public health depends on measurable outcomes and preventions of the population across the world. Community health nursing deals with disease prevention, health promotion, empowering the community health, advocacy, and development of community' health. In other words, the first step for community health nursing is to protect the general population's health.

Acute Care and Public Health

Acute nurses, just like consultants and doctors, work with patients, assist other health care practitioners, and conduct administrative duties. Acute nurses monitor and assess a patient's condition, creates an on-going care plan, and check the vital signs and symptoms as well as arranging diagnostic tests (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Acute nurses assess and apply specialized equipment like ventilators and monitors. One of their administrative duty is to apply different medication types and intravenous drips.

Unlike acute nurses, community health nurses are marred with various challenges that jeopardize the health of the communities. However, community nurses adapt quickly to their operation and can provide care to different patients with several health demands (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2017). In most instances, community health workers are critical thinkers with investigative abilities. They advocate for the rights of the patients while at the same time, act as their educators. Accessing data on mortality and morbidity of the community can help community health nurses to create health plans. In essence, need assessment plans can address the community health care requirements via collecting data.

Every public health nurse must abide by the codes of ethics established by Sir William David Ross, which is embedded in four principles. The code of ethics' principles entails justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, and autonomy. When a public health nurse takes the principle into account, they become better to preserve and protect the human rights of the community, population, and the patients they sever. In today's society,' public health nurse operation is affected by other factors such as political, cultural, moral, and ethical conflicts (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). For that reason, public health nurses are well-educated and competent in matters dealing with human rights. Such that, they have to expand operation beyond the assessment and treatment of a single patient. Instead of public health nurses being individual-focused, their operation is orchestrated towards population-focused. Public health nurses perform other duties, such as providing a different level of care, such as communities, neighborhoods, groups, families, and individuals. Kulbolk specifies numerous diverse setting, the community nurse work to entails, namely, state and local health departments, housing development, home health agencies, and community nursing centers.

Acute care nurses are known to respond quickly to limb-threatening health situations, irrespective of their ultimate causes. They work towards creating stronger health systems by supporting the progress instead of relying on the patchwork effort that may enhance specific conditions' outcomes (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2017). Acute care nurses respond quickly to preventing disability and death. Thus, they act as an entry point to health care for patients with urgent and emergent conditions. Acute nurses facilitate the establishment of metrics to assess acute care services.

Conversely, a community health nurse plays a crucial role in postnatal and prenatal care. They work towards reducing organic mental disorder and mental retardation. Community health nurse ensures that parents are prepared to accept and embrace the newborn baby into the community (Nies & McEwen, 2018). Thus, they play a crucial role in educating the parents and the public. Besides, they train other medical professionals and work in tandem with community officials to protect the public. The community health nurse tasks are reduced in terms of a nuclear meltdown by educating the public. Community health nurses conduct health screenings, administer immunizations, dispense medications, plan hand-out fliers, and organize education assemblies. They also perform other tasks such as distributing health-related commodities such as pregnancy tests and condoms.

A Nurse Leader

Whenever I think about public health nursing, I can hardly ignore the contribution of Lilian Wald. She is known to have formed the US Children's Bureau and worked for many years advocating for child labor law that contributed to the re-entry of children in schools. Wald assisted Theodore Roosevelt in establishing the Federal Children' Bureau. History supports that Wald was famously known on health issues and children's well-being. One of the most common things of her work is advocating for disabled children's rights who lived in deplorable conditions. During those trying moments, Wald made a huge difference and significant impact on the lives of young adults and children with diseases.

Wald is regarded as an advocate, a social reformer, and a nurse who made a remarkable contribution to public health systems. She worked in tandem with the American Red Cross to spearhead the emergence of health nursing services within the United States. After the American Red Cross had initiated the program, it was embraced by the local governments to establish a public health nursing within health departments across the counties. Based on her contribution, a service termed as Town and County nursing emerged, which created a framework of home nursing within specific communities (Chhugani, 2015). Through the program, instructions were provided to the community members about sanitation and hygiene. In essence, Wald played a crucial role in influencing different health services, which led to the effective provision of services within the community. She initiated Public Health to educate families on how diseases can be prevented and how the community needs to respond to health issues. Wald's initiatives contributed to a great impact in public health nursing within local governments and the country in a broader context.

Effects

Based on Wald's nursing beliefs, I realized that a public health nurse should focus on the general well-being of the population. In essence, the public health system should focus on the outcomes of enhancing life' quality, preventing disease and disability, and improving health. I acknowledge that effective public health nurses should be capable of analyzing the assessment data to set priorities and define population diagnosis (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2017). I understood that public health nurses serve as families and individual advocates to access resources, protect patients' rights, and create policies.

I recognize that when community health nurses cooperated with patients, they solely focus on improving and maintaining health, behavior awareness, and improving the general population's health. Public health nurses should be competent in monitoring and assessing community health. They should be capable of identifying intervention within a specified time to realize their objectives. Every public health nurse's operation is affected by different political, economic, and social forces (Nies & McEwen, 2018). However, by maintaining a safe working environment and correcting health practices, public health nurses can lower the patient's risks. Although their operation is affected by many factors, health care nurses find the duties much rewarding. They work towards improving the well-being of the community by making sure that their problem does not grow out of control.

I acknowledge that at a particular time, specific contagious diseases may spread faster to the community. The health issues that are more likely to spread fast include substance abuse, HIV, obesity, influenza, teen pregnancy, and influenza. For that reason, public health nurse plays a crucial role in educating the public (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2017). In other words, an effective public health nurse should express love to the community and nursing as a profession.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the difference between community and public health nursing transcends to the knowledge and involvement of the general population with a clinical and personal understanding of illness experiences and the health of families and individuals within the population. Acute nurses facilitate the establishment of metrics to assess acute care services. Conversely, a community health nurse plays a crucial role in postnatal and prenatal care.

References

Chhugani, M. (2015). ‘Public health nursing- From narrow to a broader perspective’. Journal of Community & Public Health Nursing, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.4172/2471-9846.1000e107

Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2018). Community/Public health nursing - E-book: Promoting the health of populations. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2017). Foundations for population health in community/Public health nursing - E-book. Elsevier Health Sciences.