Roles And Responsibilities Of Public Health Nurses: An Essay.

Write a report on roles and responsibilities of the public health nurses.

Introduction on Public Health Nursing

The term “public health nursing” or community health nursing refers to the practice of nursing which is focused on public health. The community health nurses chiefly integrate community involvement as well as data about the population with clinical as well as personal understanding of illness and health experiences of people and families within the population. The public health nurses chiefly perform within the community and focuses on enhancing the overall health of the community members. Some of the major areas of employment of the public health nurses include state or county health departments, school districts or state health departments and correction departments. The chief role of the public health nurse is to identify and access the concern within the community and plan methods through which the concerns of the community members can be resolved or eradicated. Some of the major health concerns associated with public health nursing are health maintenance, infection control, health coaching as well as health care visits. In USA, the Association of public Health Nurses (APHN) includes working across the 50 states as well as the US territories in order to promote the health and safety of the population along with creating healthy communities. In this report, the chief role and responsibilities of the public health nurses, their major areas and work, the challenges faced by them and the growth of the mentioned sector will be analyzed.

According to researchers, Community health nurses are refers to the register nurses who are trained to work under the public health settings that include county or state health departments, correction homes, schools as well as businesses. Considering the fact that they serve the role of caregivers in the community, majority of the time they form close bonds within the communities them sales and often form long lasting relationships worth healthcare service users. In US, the major roles of the community nurses are as follows:

1. Disease prevention specialist

Community health nurses chiefly focus on both long term as well a short term care when it comes to disease prevention. Their job involves averting as well s controlling flue spread as well as spread of other communicable diseases. They work with healthcare service uses in order to support diabetes self management as well as enhance diabetics control. They also perform for new mothers in order to reduce infant mortality rate in school for identifying service gaps.

2. Community educator

Another major role of the community health workers in US is the role of community educator. As educators, the public health nurses present materials in an understandable as well as clear format. They provide information to the community members in order to construct a framework for healthy living a well as healthy health choices. For instance, in several schools, community health nurses are found to teach students about HIV and proving sex education.  In public,, the public health nurses are found to organize classes as well as seminars or diabetes management. Overall they are found to focus on community health education as one of the major steps taken for preventive healthcare.

3. Leader

Major Roles of Community Health Nurses in USA

Another major role of the community nurses includes using evidence to implement quality based practices as well as policy changes in the society. They act as community leaders by leading collaborative effort in order to produce successful health outcomes along with providing critical medical as well as social service in the community.

4. Researcher

As researchers, public health nurses collect as well as use evidence in order to execute positive changes for better health. This research are conducted in order to validate reduce gender, race or financial inequalities associated with healthcare, validate enough fund for the necessary public healthcare programs as well as enhance the access to the services.

5. Advocate

Advocacy is another major role of the community health nurses in us. Community health nurses advocate on the local, state a well as federal level in order to provide better access to the healthcare. Besides that advocacy is also performed in order to protect funding for public health programs ad for reducing or diminishing health disparities. The public nurses are also entitled to arrange help for families in distress or for children who need assistance through social service programs. One of the most popular social service programs held by the public health nurses of USA includes special Supplemental Nutrition program for women, infant and children. This program includes providing health and nutritional services to the low income pregnant women, breast feeding mothers as well as children of age below 5 years.

6. Caregiver

In order to shape the wellbeing of the children as well as the adults, community nurses are found to cross language, cultural as well as literacy boundaries. For expectant mother, prenatal care as well as parenting education is provided. This includes providing the mother with information about maternal nutrition, childbirth classes as well as postpartum assistance. The public health nurses also provide resources that help the parents to understand appropriate child development as well as discipline techniques.

Along with the above mentioned role, public health nurses needs to play various roles in the community in order to ensure a healthy, diseases free community. According to (), working as a public health nurses provides an individual with a vast opportunity to demonstrate skills that are not only to be used within a specific hospital setting. A new challenge always waits for this profession. Be it is dog bites, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases or HIV, Ebola or clinical oparations there is always a new challenge and a new opportunity to make a positive difference.

Challenges faced by Public Health Nurses in USA

According to researchers, public nurses are found to work more with the entire communities instead of working with a specific individuals or as small group of individuals. Some of the major places where Public health Nurses of US work are as follows:

1. Community Clinique

Public Health Nurses (PHNs) work directly with the members of the community in order to deal with a wide range of health concerns. Often they are found to work independently for conducting medical test and sometimes even prescribing medications. Generally, they develop educational programs for teaching the community about the methods of improving their overall heath. In USA, majority of time, the major focus remains on obesity and family planning. Apart from that they also provide the community member with general advices, guidance and information to tackle different health issues that are most prominent in the specific community.

2. Schools

In today’s world, it is highly crucial to reach the concerns of the children. Children will be able to lead healthier and longer life if they are taught to maintain their own health as well as prevent illnesses. In order to teach the children various methods of dealing with critical issues, they work as educators in the schools. A large proportion of their time is spent of educating the students as well as he parents about methods of maintaining their overall health and prevention of diseases. Major elements of teaching are personal hygiene and sexual health. Furthermore they also monitor children at risk like those who are going to regular basement or neglect.

3. Outpatient clinics

At outpatient clinics, PHNs are found to directly work with individual clinics. Outpatient clinics includes location in the community where individuals go for getting treated for their health concerns, send out for tests and sometime prescribing medications. PHNs often design life that is displays at public for enhancing their awareness. They also ensure that people attending the outpatient clinics are gain all the information they need for improving their overall health and avoiding more serious health concerns later in life.

4. Voluntary organizations

Numerous voluntary organizations are there which focuses on offering health solutions for individuals in communities that are disenfranchised. Some of the major voluntary organization in USA includes the Red Cross, The peace Corps as well as Doctors without Borders. In these cases, PHNs possess a strong focus when it comes to provision of disaster relief. Along with this, their role also includes educating the communities on methods of preventing further outbreaks of diseases in case similar disasters again take place. This includes delivering safe drinking water, sexual health, family planning and others.

5. Government organizations

Major Areas of Work of Public Health Nurses in USA

PHNS are trained to be the leader of the health field. They are often give positions in the Department of Health. Their role includes strongly focusing on the policy development, creating methods to enhance the overall health of the entire populations. This job is more inclined towards administrative side since it requires a huge amount of paper work. PHNs, in government hospitals chiefly develop policies and help the government to implement them as well as monitor them once it will be implemented.

It has been found that the health departments of USA are finding it highly difficult to hire new nurses. More than 40 percent of the state as well as local health departments have reported to have insufficient resources for filling the vacant nurse positions. Researchers are found that that while job satisfaction of the nurses working in the Public health department of USA is high, the chief concern of majority of the public health nurses are job stability, compensation as well as career growth. Several researches have highlighted the requirement for ongoing systematic monitoring in order to inform the competency, credentialing efforts as well as compliance. When it comes to the major challenges faced by the Public health department are as follows:

1. The public health nursing workforce does not reflect lacks the potential to reflect the communities it serves. It has been found that only 4 percent of the public health nurses are Latino and 95% of those in leadership positions self-identify as white.
2. Considering the fact that the nation is suffering from aging population, majority of the nurses are aging. This in turn, is imposing negative impact on the work efficiency a well a productivity of the mentioned department. Due to lack of compensation and career growth, young nurses do not prefer to get recruited in this department.
3. Lack of investment from the side of the government is resulting in inefficient or lack of training session. This in turn is resulting in ineffective work efficiency and eventually lack of interest in the job.  

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the profession of nursing is growing in a rapid rate. The growth of the registered nurses has been projected to 19 percent which is much faster that the average growth of any other professions. As per researchers, it can be predicted that this growth will reach to more than half a million by the end of the year 2022. Considering the fact that the population of US is aging, people are living longer than ever as well as will continue to need health care during their eighties and nineties. This in turn is enhancing the demand of community nurses.

Conclusion

From the above discussion it can be clearly understood that the profession of the public Health Nurse is a highly crucial job role in USA. The public health nurses chiefly perform within the community and focuses on enhancing the overall health of the community members. In order to shape the wellbeing of the children as well as the adults, community nurses are found to cross language, cultural as well as literacy boundaries. For expectant mother, prenatal care as well as parenting education is provided. In order to enhance the number and capability of the nurses it is high time for the government to provide them with effective training sessions.

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