A public health nurse’s (PHN) role can vary depending on the disaster at hand. Typically a PHN can be responsible for initially triaging patients at an acute care center many times set up by public health personnel, caring for patients with immediate medical needs. They may also be asked to conduct door to door interviews of residents still in their homes to see, if their needs can be meet while keeping them in the home. Beyond basic nursing skills such as physical assessment and immunization technique, public health nurses must collaborate with multidisciplinary teams during a disaster. Nurses can help ensure considerations of needs of the vulnerable populations are met.
Nurses need to review the disaster history of their community, as well as how past disasters have affected the community’s health care delivery system (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2008). It is important for nurses to understand and gain the competencies necessary to respond in times of disasters before disaster strikes. The preparedness competencies should focus on personal preparedness, understanding roles, becoming acquainted with the health department’s disaster plan and communication equipment appropriate for disaster situations (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2008). Disaster and mass casualty drills and exercises are extremely valuable components of preparedness that can give nurses and other personnel opportunities to improve plans. Nurses should also identify limits to their own knowledge/skill/authority and identify key resources for referring situations that exceed those limits.
Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response Lori Godsey Walden University Family Community and Population Based Care NURS 4010, Section 13 July 26, 2013 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response Emergency preparedness is vital to the safety and functionality a community. Whether it be obtaining and assisting a surrounding community population, or by organizing the unforeseen catastrophic challenges of your local community. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the professional nurse and other community health care professionals evaluate and provide decision making skills and strategies in the event of a hurricane. The Role of the Nurse Disasters can happen at any time. Some are more prevalent than others.
Water must be treated to prevent diseases and illness. The director is responsible for contacting vendors to obtain sanitation facilities such as Port-A-Potties. In addition to these roles, it was important to get information out about who was at risk and needed tetanus immunizations. The Environmental Health Specialists (EHS) is responsible for the “health” of the community. This includes basic services such as food safety, water supply, shelter, sanitation and waste management.
Windshield Survey Summary and Reflection Mary Lou Lamer NUR/405 January 25, 2013 Dawn Warner Windshield Survey Summary and Reflection Introduction “Although it is necessary to identify health risk factors among individuals and groups in the community, it is of paramount importance that nurses learn to identify and work with health problems of a defined population or the total community”. (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012, pg. 395). The “windshield survey” is one method that the nurse can use to collect data about a particular community, however, understanding the meaning of community, community health, community as a client, and partnership, as they relay to nursing in the public setting, is important to successful data assessment. Community “Community is a locality – based entity, composed of systems of formal organizations reflecting society’s institutions, informal groups, and aggregates”.
SZT1 Task 4 The most important aspect in managing a disaster situation is preparedness. The simulation Disaster in Franklin County highlights the role of public health personnel, with emphasis on the public health nurse because the nurse is often a first responder to such a disaster. This helps to examine the roles, actions, coping methods, and techniques used by a nurse in a disaster scenario. A. Role of Public Health Personnel The role of public health personnel is to maintain the physical and emotional safety of individuals throughout the community affected by the storm.
This would include planning before the disaster, response to public health concerns during the disaster, and reviewing and improving the plan after the disaster. The Public Information Officer has the duty to provide pertinent health and safety information to the public and other responding agencies to help ensure their wellbeing. Other duties would include assuring that the public health staff remains consistent with the agency’s message to the public and other agencies as well as serving as the official spokesperson for the public health agency. The Liaison Officer interfaces with and coordinates activities with all the other agencies responding to the disaster. This includes obtaining resources from other agencies needed by the public health response and providing needed public health resources to the other responding agencies.
Community Health Nursing Karandeep Kalkat WGU SZT Task 4 September 24, 2014 Community Health Nursing Disasters frequently demand exceptional skills from medical responders such as medics, nurses and physicians. Providers work most efficiently and effectively within the roles and hierarchical structures with which they are familiar. By assigning personnel to roles that are as familiar as possible and to simultaneously enhance flexibility of response to extraordinary circumstances. Role of public health personnel In the case of Franklin County disaster, different healthcare personnel responded to the natural disaster differently. Public health personnel’s primary responsibility is that of the health of the community.
Role of Public Health Personnel During the Franklin County disaster, there were numerous individuals that participated in the disaster response. Each member had a specific role in the Public Health Team. The Community Health Nurse was crucial in the efforts to assure that the residents of Franklin County were safe and their houses were repaired from the damages caused by the storm. By going door-to-door to asking questions from a prepared survey, the Community Health Nurse was able to better evaluate the needs of the residents and assess the level of coping that was necessary and report back to the team in order to rally support in order to mend the damage of the storm. Later the Community Health Nurse was able to provide support by offering assistance by phone through the disaster hotline, to support the residents and offer guidance of whom to
Caring for Populations: Assessment and Diagnosis INTRODUCTION Assessment and diagnosis are the keys to caring in healthcare practice. For a Community Healthcare Nurse (CHN) to effectively practice in any given community, she has to assess the community, find out what problems exist, and formulate a plan to assist the people of the community in meeting their healthcare needs. Throughout this paper I will be exploring my community, Odenton, Maryland, its demography, and epidemiology and assessing the living conditions and problems of the people in the community by gathering data from census reports, vital statistic and city records as well as windshield survey. I will compare the data with that of the county, Anne Arundel, and the state