Course Description
This course explores the factors that impact the health of individuals, communities, and populations at the local, national, and global levels. Issues including public health, environmental health, emerging infectious diseases, and chronic illness will be explored, while incorporating societal and cultural issues.
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
- Explain health and development within a global health context. (PLO)
- Demonstrate an understanding of global demographic and health determinants. (PLO)
- Identify global health challenges and issues. (PLO)
- Utilize the process of critical thinking to develop strategies for dealing with social and ethical dilemmas in delivering healthcare in low and middle resource settings. (PLO)
- Discuss the major communicable and noncommunicable disease burdens impacting global health. (PLO)
- Discuss programmatic approaches to specific global health issues. (PLO)
Welcome to Global and Community-Based Nursing
This subject introduces you to the foundational principles of epidemiology and the processes utilized to perform a health assessment on a community as “client.” Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease in populations. Today, public health science of epidemiology has made major contributions to the understanding of all possible factors that contribute to health and disease in all its forms. This understanding makes up the framework for the practice of nursing in public health. This topic will focus on basic epidemiological models that nurses use to assess the dimensions of health in a community. What do you already know about assessing aspects of health in a community setting? You will apply the nursing process steps of assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation to a community. The Community Health Nurse’s assessment creates an understanding of the community at the individual, family, and group levels in order to solve identified problems. Tools that are utilized to study a community include Windshield Surveys, data from Healthy People 2030, data from sites such as City-Data.com, and local hospitals Community Assessments.
ASSIGNMENT: Writer, please respond with your feedback/viewpoint to the below written short essays written by my classroom peers. This is part of a classroom discussion. There are 2 essays from the above courses. Respond with 100-150 words for each essay with 2 intext citations and 2 references APA 7th (no later than 5 years old) edition for each essay response. I ordered 300 words and 4 sources. Thank you.
ESSAYS’ RESPONSE TO QUESTION:
Interview a Manager or Member of your organizational Disaster Preparedness Committee and provide a summary of that interview. Some potential questions to ask:
- What is their purpose?
- How were they formed?
- Who are their stakeholders/partnerships?
- What do they perceive as the biggest threat to safety for the organization?
- What is your role in a disaster?
ESSAY #1 by T.
Disaster Preparedness Committee
Disaster preparedness or emergency preparedness has been formed due to history of poor evacuation management that resulted in many lives being loss, for example Hurricane Katrina. Disasters can be from natural causes such as earthquakes and hurricanes. It can also include internal disaster such as a fire within the facility. Hospitals and health care professionals must be prepared to control the situation of a disaster, for example in an event that occurs internally, and make sure of every one’s safety within the facility especially the patients (Jung, 2022). Having effective leadership in a disaster situation is critical. Leadership preparedness and the ability to make decisions in a timely response is essential in disaster situations. Nurses must understand their roles especially in a disaster management role such as disaster preparedness coordinators as this impacts the patient safety and outcome (Murphy et al., 2022).
“The Emergency Preparedness Committee at our organization is usually formed with managers and leaders. The committee is to stay up-to-date with current plans of when a disaster is to occur. They are also to make sure their staffs are to receive the training and education they need to be prepared for when a disaster occurs” (D. Willems, personal communication, July 20, 2022). During the interview with D. Willems (personal communication, July 20, 2022), she mentioned that the organizations stakeholders would be the local police department, local fire department and also the county’s public health department. They are our partners in getting through a disaster situation. “When a disaster occurs, such as a fire within the hospital, everyone must know their roles and ensure everyone is safe as safety is the main goal here. Usually there would be a leader who would give out roles when a disaster occurs and it is important that all staff understand their role. That’s the reason why it is so important for everyone to attend the mandatory classes and do their health stream classes (online continuing education). Attending class and training, you will be prepared and will know to work through situations calmly. Communication is also important during a disaster. You must know who to call and to communicate with about the situation and to make sure everyone is safe. For example, during night shift, your charge nurse would be who you report to and they would communicate with the house supervisor. They will be directing you and everyone on what your roles are and what to do” (D. Willems, personal communication, July 20, 2022).
Also, when asked about what D. Willems (personal communication, July 20, 2022) believed to be the biggest threat to safety for our organization, she mentioned code gray, which is when there is a combative person. “We have been short staffed and have been seeing a lot of patients int the emergency departments, it never fails that they are angry people in the lobby. It is important that our staff knows how to handle these situations and that’s why we have the mandatory classes” (D. Willems, personal communication, July 20, 2022). One take away from the interview is when preparing for disaster events, nurses must understand the importance of their roles of being prepared by continue education. By taking continuing education and training classes, nurses will understand their roles during a disaster event. Having a plan and knowing the plan is important in having successful outcomes in a disaster situation.
References
Jung, Y. (2022). Virtual reality simulation for disaster preparedness training in hospitals: integrated review. Journal of Medical Internet Research. doi:https://doi.org/10.2196/30600
Murphy, J. P., Horberg, A., Radestad, M., Kurland, L., Ruters, A., & Jirwe, M. (2022). Registered nurses’ experience as disaster preparedness coordinators during a major incident: a qualitative study. Nursing Open, 9(1), 329-338. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.1066
ESSAY #2 by M.
Disaster Preparedness Committee members can be difficult to contact at a small hospital. The interview was discussed with the Assistant Director of the Telemetry department, William Case, RN, BSN. All hospitals are a critical element within the disaster medical response system and this committee ensures we work collaboratively with local government, other health care providers, and other agencies to plan, prepare for and respond to the needs of victims of natural or man-made disasters, bioterrorism, and other public health emergencies. Our hospital has formed many systems to prepare for emergency situations.
Incident Command Systems (ICS) and Multi-Agency Command Systems (MACS) were developed in response to severe forest fire events in California in the early 1970’s. Command Operations were intended to specify system performance requirements for resource status monitoring, situation assessment, logistics, communications, decision criteria, and other operational needs (NWCG, 2020). It has since been adapted to handle an organizational response to emergencies to maximize efficient flow of information and resources internally and externally.
At Marshall Medical Center, there will always be a designated Incident Commander, trained to follow the ICS protocols. Activity will always be accompanied by a Safety Officer to collaborate on safety and security concerns. Beyond that, Administration, Clinical and Non-clinical department heads, Physician Representatives, and an Information/Public Relations point person may be called on to coordinate an effective response to any emergency.
Per William Case, it is difficult to weigh hypothetical threat levels, but recent challenges requiring incident command at our hospital have been forest fire threats and smoke dangers, high-capacity patient care challenges, and loss of IT capabilities affecting urgent patient care. Other serious issues requiring preparedness drills would be active shooters, earthquakes, mass-casualty events, or hazardous waste events. Preparedness drills can have a significant impact on assisting hospitals to be well prepared when a disaster strikes. A recent study in BMC Health Services Research showed that hospitals that performed frequent preparedness drills were able to see shortcomings in the performance and were able to correct the issue (Schumacher et al., 2022).
As assistant director’s role in disaster preparedness is reporting regularly to the designated inpatient coordinator to respond to requests to audit supplies, report present patient acuities and staffing needs, verify new directives have been implemented, and refer clarifying questions to the coordinator. This eliminates inefficient communication, closes the loop on time-sensitive requests and queries, and helps the coordinators to not be side-tracked by multiple similar questions and requests from varying people in our department. The role of a staff RN is to care for their patients, as well as inform and communicate effectively with families, doctors, and other staff members.
References
National Wildfire Coordinating Group. (2020). Multi-agency coordination (MAC). NWCG. Retrieved July 21, 2022, from https://www.nwcg.gov/term/glossary/multi-agency-coordination-mac
Schumacher, L., Senhaji, S., Gartner, B. A., Carrez, L., Dupuis, A., Bonnabry, P., & Widmer, N. (2022). Full-scale simulations to improve disaster preparedness in hospital pharmacies. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08230-9
W. Case, personal Communication, July 21, 2022
