Community Health Intro Page
NURS 463: Community Health Nursing I
Assignment Purpose
This nursing course focuses on professional nursing practice with groups and communities as clients. Within the nursing process students will explore utilization of epidemiological systems and nursing theories to assist groups and communities to meet their nursing and community health needs. Emphasis is on promoting community wellness through interactions with groups, the social and political agencies.
Approach to Assignment
This portfolio was developed as a reflective compilation of both academic work and essential learning completed throughout my Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. Our approach to this assignment, was to apply our knowledge of the nursing process, social determinants of health, nursing fundamentals, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs through care considerations for a community aggregate experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness.
Reason for Inclusion
Domain 1: Knowledge for Nursing Practice. Demonstrate social responsibility as a global citizen who fosters the attainment of health equity for all.
Through our work with PiN Ministry, we learned to appreciate persons experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity as individuals with unique, nuanced circumstances and not as a monolith, and in so doing, we were able to tailor our patient education and care to the needs of individual members of the aggregate. Specifically, we researched the sociodemographics of the City of Virginia Beach and learned that the statistics aligned with the demographics we encountered at PiN Ministries. Through our experiences, the foreign-born clients were Spanish-speaking or spoke languages not represented among the PiN Ministry staff, so we worked with a Spanish-language translator to produce our patient educational material for our hypertension hygiene project into Spanish, so that the language barrier did not contribute to adverse health outcomes related to our project or patient teaching.
Domain 1: Knowledge for Nursing Practice. Maintains awareness of global environmental factors that may influence the delivery of health care services.
Persons experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity frequently become direct victims of climate change. Inadequate housing forces clients to spend time in direct sunlight, often with inadequate protection, and with PiN Ministry being located in a coastal metropolitan area (Virginia Beach), aggregate members frequently spend a majority of their time on the beach with minimal shade coverage. At PiN Ministry, we prepared hot-weather kits for patients, including ice packets and coolers for them to keep their medications safe, gave out water bottles to offset dehydration, provided patient education regarding the dangers of sun overexposure, and helped clients identify unique ways to protect their skin from the sun. Additionally, we provided clients with sunscreen and wound care for sun burns and slowly-healing wounds.
We conducted a walking windshield survey of the Ellmer School of Nursing’s Virginia Beach campus, providing insight into how environmentally-sound architecture and planning contribute to an efficient, comfortable learning environment and academic community gathering place. The facility is also used to provide healthcare services periodically (back-to-school physical events and community health fairs), and serves as the environment where healthcare knowledge is both synthesized and disseminated.
Domain 7: Systems-Based Practice. Describe the impact of healthcare cost and payment models on the delivery, access, and quality of care.
My stance is firm: access to healthcare is a fundamental right, a nursing priority, and is a systems issue requiring a systems solution, and I discuss this stance in my position text about the issue. Vulnerable populations are at an increased risk for experiencing barriers to healthcare access, a result of the systems that drive the inequities that create the financial constraints, lack of reliable transportation, and lack of adequate health insurance that contribute to poorer health outcomes. Furthermore, multigenerational distrust of the healthcare system and government institutions exacerbate the delays in diagnosis and treatment for members of vulnerable populations.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (n.d.). Domains & Concepts. The essentials. https://www.aacnnursing.org/essentials/tool-kit/domains-concept
Learn more about our aggregate, the greater population, and our community (Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA) here: