Roles of Public Health Nurse
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Public health nurses play a vital role both at the global level and community level. Public health nurse ensures and aims at integrating the community participation and knowledge with a personal, clinical understanding of the whole spectrum of health and illness experiences of families and individuals within the population. Public health nurses have a unique role in the community; they majorly focus on a disadvantaged and underserved population.
Public health nurses’ role includes the provision of locally focused patient care and education. Providing patient care, public health nurse serves patients who are not willing to seek care from a doctor’s office (Eklöf et al. 2015). It involves an assessment of the patient’s symptoms, diagnosis making, and proposing a care plan. In a few cases, they may administer treatments like flu shots. Public health nurses also refer patients to available resources. In a situation where a case is beyond public health nurse treatment, they direct patients to professionals who can provide the care they need.
Another role of public health nurse is the education of individuals and communities. The work of a public health nurse is majorly concerned with the education of individuals, families and communities concerning important issues regarding health. They educate communities, individuals and families concerning preventive measures aimed at keeping people healthy. Another key role of the public health nurse is documenting their work (Stanhope and Lancaster 2019). They record their daily work for the organizations they work for. It includes data regarding patients historical data.
At a global level, public health nurses play a unique role. Globally there are major issues such as outbreaks of disease such as cholera, polio, recent case of Coronavirus, which requires an immediate collaboration from nurses across the globe. Public health nurses play a role in the prevention of diseases and management of the infectious outbreak. The function to provide care delivery, educating the community and policymaking to influence population health outcomes.
References
Eklöf, N., Hupli, M., & Leino‐Kilpi, H. (2015). Nurses’ perceptions of working with immigrant patients and interpreters in Finland. Public health nursing, 32(2), 143-150.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2019). Public health nursing e-book: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.