00:01
Today we're going to cover basic
concepts in public health nursing,
starting first by
answering the question,
what is public health nursing?
First, I'd like to
introduce you to George.
00:11
George and I are both
public health nurses.
00:13
And we'll be guiding you
through several important
public health nursing
concepts during the series.
00:18
As public health nurses, George and I both
work in the communities where we live.
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That means that we use
our nursing expertise
to address health concerns
that are important to us
and others in our community.
00:30
Today, we're going to
introduce public health nursing
and share what makes
this specialty so unique.
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Now, community health nursing and public
health nursing often get mixed up.
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There are two terms that
people use interchangeably,
but there's a difference
between the two.
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So let's break that down.
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On one side,
we have community health nursing.
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On the other side,
we have public health nursing.
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And right down the middle here, we have
five areas in which the two are different.
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Let's start first by
talking about the purpose.
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Community Health Nursing is
generally focused on illness care
for individuals or families in a
particular community based setting.
01:10
However,
public health is more broad.
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It focuses on health care of
communities and populations.
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It views the community
or the population
as the recipient of care
rather than the individual.
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Goals here are also different.
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In community health nursing,
the goal is management of
acute or chronic conditions.
01:30
In public health, the goal is prevention
of disease and health promotion.
01:37
Patient interaction also looks different
between community health and public health.
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In community health,
interactions are often one on one.
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Sometimes they're family based.
01:46
In public health, interactions are at
the organizational or community level.
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Types of services also vary.
01:54
In community health,
most services are direct patient care.
01:58
In contrast, most public health
nursing interventions are indirect.
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While some public health nursing
roles include direct patient care,
it also includes indirect care
through program management
and systems level leadership.
02:12
Public health is really
concerned about the interaction
between the community or the
population and their environment.
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And finally,
levels of prevention.
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In community health nursing,
the levels of prevention practice
are mainly secondary and tertiary,
maybe a little bit of primary prevention.
02:29
In public health, however,
the focus is mainly on primary prevention.
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Now that we've discussed the
difference between community health,
nursing and public
health nursing,
let's take a look at an example.
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We'll use fall prevention to differentiate
the role of a community health nurse
and a public health nurse.
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A community health nurse may conduct
a physical assessment on an individual
who is experienced a fall.
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They may also conduct an
assessment of a home environment
to determine how and why that
fall occurred in the first place.
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Based on that assessment,
a community health nurse will work closely
with a family to
develop a plan of care.
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Now that plan of care may include a
number of different interventions.
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For example,
it could include treating an injury
that occurred as a
result of the fall.
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So maybe there's a dressing
change that needs to be done,
the community health nurse
would do that dressing change,
and also teach
the family members
how to do that dressing change
when they're not around.
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In addition, a community health nurse
would also offer up some suggestions
to prevent falls
from occurring again.
03:32
These suggestions could be related
to the lighting in the home,
making sure that there's
appropriate lighting
so that everyone can see
where they're walking.
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They may also discuss things
such as floor coverings
and the use of nonstick rugs.
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When we think about secondary
and tertiary prevention,
another really great intervention
is the use of a fall alarm.
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So that if an individual does fall,
family members or emergency services
are alerted that they need help.
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Now let's take a look at fall prevention
from a public health nurses perspective,
from George's perspective.
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Now, again, we're going to
start out with an assessment
because that's what nurses do.
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But George's assessment is going
to look a little bit different.
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Rather than focus on an
individual or a family,
George is going to do
a community assessment.
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And there's three parts to
that community assessment.
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First, he'll conduct
an environmental scan.
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This means he's going to
walk around the community,
he's going to look at things such
as the conditions of the sidewalks,
maybe he'll check to see if
there's handrails near staircases.
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Next, he's going to
collect some hard data.
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So maybe he'll go to a
local emergency department
and collect data related
to falls in the community,
looking at where
people are falling,
who's falling, what type of injuries
have occurred as a result of falls.
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Next, George is going
to conduct focus groups.
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He wants to learn directly from
those who are at highest risk,
what their concerns are
about falls in the community.
04:55
So maybe he'll go to
a local senior center
and talk to people there conduct
focus groups to understand
what they're specific
concerns are.
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Now based on all
these assessment data.
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Georgia is going to put
together a treatment plan,
a treatment plan
for the community.
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And again, this can involve a number
of different nursing interventions.
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It may include advocacy
for changes in policy.
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It may include community
wide education.
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It may include advocacy for
changes to the local environment.
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So hopefully through
this example,
you've seen the difference
between community health nursing
and public health nursing.
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There are eight characteristics
that define public health nursing.
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These are the characteristics
that set us apart
that make us unique
from other specialties.
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First,
and perhaps the most important
is that we as public health nurses
care unit of care as the population.
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This means that rather seen
individual as our patient,
we see an entire
population as our patient.
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We seek to improve the health of that
population through our nursing practice.
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Next, as public health nurses,
we aim to do the greatest good
for the greatest number of people.
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Now this may be different from the
type of nursing that you're used to
where your sole focus might be
on one or just a few patients.
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With public health nursing,
we do the greatest good for
the greatest number of people.
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Next, we see the client
as an equal partner.
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And remember,
the client here is the population.
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This means that we seek and value input
from all members of the population
when designing,
implementing and evaluating services.
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As I mentioned earlier, in public
health we focus on primary prevention.
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This means that we aim to
stop disease before it begins
rather than treat it
once it's established.
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Now there's the first four,
we've got four more left.
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As public health nurses,
we focus on strategies that
create healthy environmental,
social and economic conditions.
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This means that we consider
factors other than healthcare
that help keep people and
populations well or make them ill.
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We see illness and wellness as
multifactorial and we treat them as such.
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As public health nurses,
we actively identify and reach out to
all who might benefit from our services.
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This means that we advertise our
services to anyone who might benefit
rather than simply provide
services to those who seek us out.
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We don't wait at a hospital or in a
clinic for patients to come to us,
we go to them.
07:25
Okay, only two more to go.
07:28
As public health nurses, we ensure
that we're using resources wisely.
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Often we're using community level
resources to deliver our services.
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Because of this,
it's even more important to ensure
that we're using them in a way
that creates the most benefit
and honors the priority
of the community.
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And finally,
here we are at number eight.
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Collaboration is essential
in all types of nursing.
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It holds special value
in public health nursing,
as we know that we cannot do
our work in communities alone.
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Being a public health nurse
requires close collaboration
with the community
in which you work.
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As a reminder, although all eight
characteristics are important,
the most important is that
as public health nurses,
we see our client
as the community.
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The community is
our unit of care.
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Public health nurses
serve communities
through health promotion
and disease prevention.
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Health Promotion includes all efforts
that seek to move people closer
to optimal well being or
higher levels of wellness.
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We do this through a variety of
different nursing interventions.
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Interventions can include direct
individual patient care services,
such as administering vaccines.
08:37
Public health nurses
also promote health
through community and
systems level approaches,
such as collaborating to open
a school based health center
that provides a variety of services
to young people in a community
or advocating for policies that improve
living conditions in the community.
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Through these health
promotion activities,
a public health nurse aims
to do three different things.
09:00
Increase the span of healthy
life for all citizens,
reduce health disparities
among population groups,
and finally, help achieve
access to preventive services
for everyone in the community.
09:17
Public health nurses also work to improve
health outcomes through disease prevention.
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There are three main levels
of disease prevention,
primary, secondary,
and tertiary.
09:26
These are explored in
detail later in the series.
09:31
Public health nurses work in a
variety of different settings.
09:35
And while it's
important to know this,
it's not the setting that defines
public health nursing practice.
09:39
Rather, it's the eight characteristics
that we just talked about.
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Public health nurses are able
to embody these characteristics
in a variety of different settings through
a variety of different interventions.
09:49
Here are just a few examples.
09:51
Public health nurses may
work in mobile clinics,
doing COVID-19 or
other types of testing.
09:57
Public health nurses may also use their
expertise to work in occupational health.
10:01
This means they work
with groups of employees
to ensure their working
environment is safe
and collaborate with them
to optimize their health.
10:10
Public health nurses often
work around the globe.
10:13
Through this work, they're able
to improve global health outcomes
through Disease Prevention
and Health Promotion.
10:20
Public health nurses
also work in schools.
10:22
In fact, school nurses
are public health nurses
by definition of the
type of work they do.
10:27
They see the school community
as their unit of care
and engage in a variety of
direct and indirect activities
that improve the health of individuals
and populations within the school.
10:38
As you can see,
there are a lot of opportunities
in public health
nursing for you.
10:42
Thanks for watching.