Public health nurses play an essential role in advancing and promoting health in contemporary societies worldwide. They integrate significant knowledge and community involvement concerning the general population with a clinical and personal understanding. In the current global society, a leading priority for the work of the public health nurse is to uphold public wellness among the patient and the general society. According to Kirk (2020), promoting health and wellness by a public health nurse priority involves assessing all the past and existing health trends. Therefore, the assessment of the health trends will allow the public health nurse to determine specific health risk factors for society or a particular patient.
Another essential priority for the public health nurse is preventing diseases and illnesses among the population. This priority is perhaps the most important since it advances the primary objective of healthcare which is to prevent illnesses. The public health nurse could realize this priority by assigning crucial priorities for every necessary health-related intervention to offer practical benefit. An additional priority for the public health of nurses is creating functional relationships with every patient. This priority will allow the nurse to reduce health risks by ensuring patients are responsible for their treatment.
The concept of advocacy and case management for a nurse involves their ability to stand up for the patient and their rights. As a result, this demonstrates that advocacy is essential in case management and requires the nurse to balance the two aspects for productive results effectively. The existing relationship between advocacy and case management can be balanced by a nurse by ensuring that they are transparent in their communication with all patients at all times. Williams et al. (2018) further point out that a nurse can realize this balance by being open to all suggestions, irrespective of their magnitude. This implies that the nurse ought to consider the input of other healthcare providers, including the nursing staff. Additionally, the balance could be done by obtaining the necessary knowledge, competencies, as well as skills. Acquiring these insights will enable nurses to have the required skills to promote advocacy and become better case managers. This, in turn, will allow every nurse to realize the desired results for all physicians, staff, and patients.
Case management is a collaborative procedure that involves the assessment, organization, facilitating, coordination of care, and advocating for specific services for health needs. In all the practices presented, case management directly inputs every element of nursing, including school nurses in an elementary school. A school nurse in the elementary school ought to assess every child in the school. In most cases, if not all, children are always vulnerable, particularly because they might be unable to express issues that either affect or hurt them. The school nurse has the sole responsibility of ensuring the children are helped to report what affects them and report them to respective bodies such as teacher, parents, or their care providers. For example, an elementary student approaches the nurse to inform them they are having difficulties concentrating and they are afraid to tell the teacher. The nurse should analyze all the signs of the child’s inability to concentrate and report to the respective teachers. Therefore, this implies the nurse has effectively illustrated the skills emphasized in case management.
References
Kirk, M. E. (2020). When it is no longer your call: managing the eroding public health nurse role. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Victoria]
Williams, S. D., Phillips, J. M., & Koyama, K. (2018). Nurse Advocacy: Adopting health in all policies approach. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(3). Web.