Healthy People 2020 goals
Discussion 5, 4055
One of the Healthy People 2020 goals is attaining high-quality lives through preventing diseases and living longer. Nurses can teach patients about prevention, response, and control measures especially when faced with a pandemic. Patients need to understand that preventing diseases begins with regular check-ups with primary care physicians. Therefore, nurses must emphasize the importance of patients going for screening tests for early disease detection and prevention. When patients follow such procedures, it promotes good health since diseases can be prevented or detected early thus leading to better healthcare outcomes. As such, attaining this Healthy People 2020 goal requires the collaboration of healthcare institutions, nurses, and patients.
Another Healthy People 2020 goal is the promotion of healthy behaviors across all life stages. Nurses can positively impact this goal through increasing immunization rates especially for communicable diseases. Such diseases include pneumonia, influenzas, Hepatitis, HIV, flu, and measles. On top of increasing immunization against these diseases, nurses can educate the public on some of the ways to prevent their spread. This however requires nurses have an evidenced-based understanding of the diseases (Buse, Tanaka & Hawkes, 2017). Such strategies by the nurses increase the awareness of the public regarding engaging in healthy behaviors and practices that reduce the spread of infectious diseases.
A third Healthy People 2020 goal is the creation of environments that promote social and physical interactions thus promoting good health. To help achieve this goal, nurses can hold seminars and workshops at community health centers. The purpose of these seminars is to unite people and creating an atmosphere where health professionals can interact with people while educating them on infectious diseases. Also, such workshops lead to people becoming knowledgeable about their health. Such actions by nurses ensure improved overall health of the population. More importantly, the nurses positively impact the Healthy People 2020 goals in addition to achieving them.
References
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Coster, S., Watkins, M., & Norman, I. J. (2018). What is the impact of professional nursing on patients’ outcomes globally? An overview of research evidence. International journal of nursing studies, 78, 76-83.
Egan, B. M., Li, J., White, K., Fleming, D. O., Connell, K., Hernandez, G. T., … & Sinopoli, A. (2016). 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol guideline and implications for healthy people 2020 cardiovascular disease prevention goals. Journal of the American Heart Association, 5(8), e003558.
Ferris, R. L. (2020). Promising progress from Healthy People 2020 and cancer incidence update. Cancer, 126(10), 2114-2115.