Nurses play an essential part in the healthcare system. They are the first people that patients interact with since they are trained to assess wellness and diagnosis. Nursing health promotion is the practice of increasing people’s control of their well being and that of their dependants. The guiding principles for NHP are advocating, enabling and mediation of health practices as they strive to deliver equal access to health care facilities and services. Health promotion nursing also considers gender, race, and ethnicity. Additionally, nurses play the role of mediators between the government, media, health care providers and the community.
The American Academy of Nursing along with online essay writers from Write My Paper Hub professional service acknowledge the importance of strengthening public health in the country to attain healthy populations and communities. The practice also aims at health promotion and protection with the use of knowledge achieved from nursing practice. Nurses have a long history of maintaining healthy populations as one of the core fields in public health (Ervin & Kulbok, 2018). The U.S. government is also keen on improving care systems by coming up with effective reforms that lead to excellent patient experiences. In addition, health departments support nursing education and practice as a way of ensuring improved health outcomes and a healthy future for the American population (Wills, 2014). This is reinforced by increasing funding on health sciences, training and research on disease management. Health workers population is also increased to improve the capacity of the available facilities.
Although the government is working hard to improve health, life expectancy and reduce diseases, nursing practice in the U.S. still faces a number of challenges. The aging population suffers from chronic illnesses that reduce their life expectancy due to the inefficiency of the current health systems. These problems are also contributed by poor infrastructure that affects the costs of health care, resources, and public health workers. There is a growing need for focusing on population health a term that is familiar to the people (Wills, 2014). It requires equal distribution of health care outcome among the residents and coming up with policies for intervention to benefit the dependants. Nursing care calls for keen attention to all to protect and promote health.
When serving a community, it is vital to have a distinction by not just performing it as a practice but by ensuring that the health of members is promoted and protected. Nursing would also require using knowledge gained from other sources such as social work and public health sciences. In the past decades, nurses have been at the forefront of maintaining a smooth running of the health care facilities and ensuring that the vulnerable populations are taken care of. However, some of the achievements made by nurses are not documented compared to those of other health care disciplines. Working in American communities requires a focus on behavior change and health education (Raingruber, 2017). Nurses have the ability to care for patients suffering from chronic illnesses. Therefore, they ensure the enhancement of healthcare outcomes. Home visits programs is a vital mitigation measure that has led to improvement of health in people suffering from injuries, nursing mothers and infants, management of preventable diseases and caring about the aging population.
Home visit program is one of the services served by community health nurses in the U.S. that aims at providing long term interventions for vulnerable groups such as nursing mothers and infants. The program mainly seeks to help first-time mothers by ensuring that the public health policies and practices are taken into account. This is delivered throughout the country and plans to expand to the communities in the neighboring countries. The interventions carried out have shown to improve maternal and child health in the groups taking part in the program for a minimum of two years (Raingruber, 2017). Long-term effects are also realized even after they exit the program. Other activities carried out during home visits are peer education whose impact is felt in the reduction of teenage pregnancies. Additionally, the program advocates for the Affordable Care Act, with nurses making a significant contribution to its implementation.
Another focus area is on the strengthening of infrastructure so that population health can be improved. Reforms on health care systems have shown positive outcomes although reduction of public health nurses is a challenge to fast implementation of the processes. Such decreases are an area of concern since nurse to patient ratio is crucial in achieving the program goals. Little attention is paid on the ratio, thus triggering the fears of public health directors who made a detailed report on their expectations since workforce is essential for planning nursing programs (Ervin & Kulbok, 2018). Patients-nurses ratio should be lower especially in communities that are susceptible to various ailments such as communicable diseases.
As community health nurses, another service offered is also on forensic science. In the United States, Sexual assault occurs often, and a forensic nurse plays the role of examining the victims. These nurses also offer compassionate and appropriate care to the victims after facing traumatic events. Other services include event documentation, assessment, evidence collection and providing testimonies in courts.
The American Academy of Nursing is a body that realizes the need for strengthening public health in the U.S. The organization aim is to protect and promote the health of the people in different communities and ensuring their well-being. It is majorly known for its efforts in the nursing practice it utilizes medical knowledge for improving community health. The academy supports the strengthening of infrastructure in protecting communities and populations (Ervin & Kulbok, 2018). One of the several achievements of the body is increased in the education and training of nurses in different public health areas as well as, population health management.
Conclusively, nurses play a crucial role in health promotion and disease prevention. Nurses wellness ambassadors in this era where the governments and other health organizations are concerned about cutting costs and staff reduction (Raingruber, 2017). Health promotion is defined and the process where people assume control of improving health by ensuring that they have access to information through education and outreach activities. Nurses are assigned the role of health care promotion since they educated professionals who gain access to crucial information from different avenues. In a community setting, nursing health promotion is designed to decrease health outcomes through increasing knowledge. The role of nurses includes various responsibilities such as advocacy and planning of activities that geared towards reduction of negative health outcomes. Nurses are required to take an active role in coming u with health promotion strategies that will lead to maximized outcomes. Such activities include home visits, advocacy in health care infrastructure improvement and working to promote and improve the people’s well-being. The American Academy of nursing seeks to promote and strengthen the United States’ public health and support efforts for increasing public health nursing capacity.
References
Ervin, N. E., & Kulbok, P. (2018). Advanced public and community health nursing practice: population assessment, program planning and evaluation. Springer Publishing Company.
Raingruber, B. (2017). Contemporary health promotion in nursing practice. Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Wills, J. (2014). Fundamentals of health promotion for nurses. Hoboken: Wiley.
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