Research Paper on Family Health Nursing

Introduction

Presently, the growing complexity of healthcare and the decline in the availability of physicians, many patients both in and out-patients seek the services of the family nurse practitioners (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Also, family health nurses are healthcare professionals tasked with the responsibility of helping individuals and families by ensuring that they cope with their illnesses and chronic function disabilities and depression (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). The most effective means of providing that acute quality care is achieved is when the nurses spend much time of their working hours promoting the preventive and curative initiative to the patients and their families (Schoon et al., 2018). Moreover, family health nurses have access to family homes, community-based care settings, and public health departments, visiting home programs, and community education (Kaakinen et al., 2018). Therefore, the paper analyzes the role of family health nurses in setups such as family homes, community health centers, and public health departments.

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Family Homes

Family health nurses are composed of both community and public health nurses. Both groups of professionals should work with families by establishing visitation rights and schedules to access the family health condition (Diem & Moyer, 2015). Family health nurses obtain access to patient-homes through different means, for example, physical visitation, phone call, electronic mail communication, or social media networking (Kaakinen et al., 2018). Additionally, their responsibility is to assist patients receiving care from their homes through healthcare management, home care, and telehealth services (Schoon et al., 2018). Their primary duty is to educate, inspire, encourage and develop treatment plans for the patients. A good initiative is access to home visiting programs. These programs not only involve monitoring the health condition of the patient, but it also enhances a model of promoting the acute relationship between the community and health workers (Kaakinen et al., 2018). In case a link is natured in a friendly manner, there are higher chances of the patient become free and open to the nurse; thus, promoting quality healthcare for the patient (Schoon et al., 2018). Lastly, these patients get the opportunity to make friends who encourage, inspire and educate them on better treatment approaches for their illnesses.

Community-Based Care Practice

Research indicates that the health status of a community has and is dependent on the physical, social, and cognitive determinants of care (Kaakinen et al., 2018). Moreover, community-based care and transitional care practices represent the opportunities for health improvement, specifically through investing in public and population health (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Next, family health nurses are vital members of implementing community-based care since societal and health disparities vary from location to location. In other words, a community-based service is unique to an identified locating since it focuses on the needs of the less privileged and underserved members of the community (Diem & Moyer, 2015). Such issues involve preventive measures for chronic illnesses, health screening, child care, and education programs (Kaakinen et al., 2018). Family health care nurses access these resources in different approaches, for example, physical approach, video conferencing, and phone calls. Most of these setups promote programs that aim in educating families in better ways of living (Kaakine et al., 2018). By establishing such applications, the involvement of the community enhances into group activities where individuals discuss and come up with means of ensuring they live a healthy life (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Also, nurses get to meet other department nurses such as pediatricians, and by conversing they share information; thus, improving their range of information. Since the community-based health care systems are different patients, get the opportunity of organizing their lives and ensuring that they live in a healthy and clean surrounding.

Public Health Departments

Also, families and communities have relied on all levels of the governments' health care support. Additionally, the public health sector is one of the leading models of community-based services for populations since it addresses public health main functions (Schoon et al., 2018). Next, family health nurses access the resources by becoming a leader or member of any of the affiliate established programs, for example, vulnerable group care which includes maternity care, disability care, rehabilitation, and reformation programs, and acute, chronic function disorder programs. Since nursing is one of the most growing institutions and professionals in the U.S. and at the same time faces a high scope of a nursing shortage, family nurses are often offered dual roles in a public health center (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). For example, family nurses will often be involved in more than one program as a means of establishing health care balance to all the patents; hence, if it is the case of educating the patients on health safety measures of steps of rehabilitation, one nurse will cover the topics group by group. These nurses not only learn from their colleagues but they also experience working with different populations covering a wide range of information (Diem & Moyer, 2015). Lastly, patients receive a wide range of medical services since nurses consult and deduce various new plans for treating the patients.

Conclusion

Family health nurses are some of the essential members of the nursing profession. They provide care to the community as well as families. These professionals have the mandate to have access to their patients at the hospital or private residence levels by using video conferencing, phone call, or physical visitation among others. Their role in all the health care setups, family homes, community-based environments, and public health setups is to ensure patients are well educated on the various patterns of illnesses and the cure, motivated to promote healthy well-being and receive acute quality medical care.

References

Diem, E., & Moyer, A. (2015). Community and public health nursing: Learning to make a difference through teamwork, Second edition. Canadian Scholars' Press.

Kaakinen, J., Coehlo, D., Steele, R., & Robinson, M. (2018). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. F. A. Davis.

Schoon, P., Porta, C., & Schaffer, M. (2018). Population-Based public health clinical manual, Third edition: The Henry street model for nurses. Sigma.

Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public Health Nursing: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.