Community health nurses have played a crucial role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have adopted various digital technologies and public information techniques to continue providing healthcare services and health teachings to communities while maintaining social distancing. This includes webinars, online consultations, social media posts, signs, flyers, and radio broadcasts. Community health nurses conduct contact tracing, home visits, mobile consultations, and help interpret ever-changing pandemic guidelines. Their services have helped flatten the outbreak curve and meet communities' basic healthcare needs during a time when hospitals and clinics have limited services. Community health nursing remains essential amid the pandemic as nurses investigate outbreaks and disseminate important information, keeping the backbone of society from collapsing under the heavy
Community health nurses have played a crucial role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have adopted various digital technologies and public information techniques to continue providing healthcare services and health teachings to communities while maintaining social distancing. This includes webinars, online consultations, social media posts, signs, flyers, and radio broadcasts. Community health nurses conduct contact tracing, home visits, mobile consultations, and help interpret ever-changing pandemic guidelines. Their services have helped flatten the outbreak curve and meet communities' basic healthcare needs during a time when hospitals and clinics have limited services. Community health nursing remains essential amid the pandemic as nurses investigate outbreaks and disseminate important information, keeping the backbone of society from collapsing under the heavy
Community health nurses have played a crucial role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have adopted various digital technologies and public information techniques to continue providing healthcare services and health teachings to communities while maintaining social distancing. This includes webinars, online consultations, social media posts, signs, flyers, and radio broadcasts. Community health nurses conduct contact tracing, home visits, mobile consultations, and help interpret ever-changing pandemic guidelines. Their services have helped flatten the outbreak curve and meet communities' basic healthcare needs during a time when hospitals and clinics have limited services. Community health nursing remains essential amid the pandemic as nurses investigate outbreaks and disseminate important information, keeping the backbone of society from collapsing under the heavy
Community health nurses have played a crucial role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have adopted various digital technologies and public information techniques to continue providing healthcare services and health teachings to communities while maintaining social distancing. This includes webinars, online consultations, social media posts, signs, flyers, and radio broadcasts. Community health nurses conduct contact tracing, home visits, mobile consultations, and help interpret ever-changing pandemic guidelines. Their services have helped flatten the outbreak curve and meet communities' basic healthcare needs during a time when hospitals and clinics have limited services. Community health nursing remains essential amid the pandemic as nurses investigate outbreaks and disseminate important information, keeping the backbone of society from collapsing under the heavy
Post-task Activity Let us ponder/reflect upon the importance of Public Health Nursing/Community Health Nursing & Nurse nationally and globally through the reading.
1. After learning the importance of digital technology in the practice of other
allied health members during this critical time, what do you think community health nurses do to reach out for their client’s in times of the pandemic? Amidst the global increase and proliferation of covid-19 cases, the World Health Organization, declared this coronavirus disease as a health emergency based on the rising statistics of case notification rates. Almost three years later since that declaration, the Covid-19 pandemic is still lurking within the community, although not as grave as it was in the past years, the fear of case spikes or new modifications of the virus is still a global concern. With this, almost every aspect of human living had to be deconstructed and altered to fit this new world that we live in, a world we seem to be sharing with a threat unseen. From an economic and social standpoint and even in the aspects of education, communication, and many more, the pandemic has surely remodeled what we know to be normal, implying the change towards a new normal that is structured around the interest of safeguarding global health. One pillar of society that has been greatly altered by the pandemic is our Healthcare system. The limitations and dangers brought about by covid19 have engendered the use of social distancing, contactless consultations, remote diagnostic techniques, AI, and improved modern technology to ensure the delivery of healthcare without the risk of infection from the virus.
With a problem so centered in the structures of society and heavily concerned
with the community’s health and wellbeing, community health nurses play a major role in flattening the curve of the outbreak all while providing the basic and important healthcare needs of the community. Through digital technology, community health nurses are able to provide health teachings through webinars, online consults, and even simple social media posts targeted for their clients and the community in general. It is given that health teaching amongst the pandemic is of much importance considering that these infections are preventable as long as you follow the set safety protocols. With this, community nursing teams have adopted different ways to share the needed health information to the majority of the community while lessening the individual human contacts they make; to achieve such a goal, this is where public information techniques come in. Through simple signs, flyers, and catchy radio broadcast jingles about the pandemic, community health nurses are able to reach out to their constituents. Community health nurses are the first responders to this global health emergency, taking roles in contact tracing, education delivery, isolation provision, hotline and home visits, and interpretation of set guidelines for this ever changing situation. Furthermore, because hospitals, clinics, and health centers are limiting the provision of their services, instead of the client going to these health centers, community health nurses and healthcare workers are the ones providing these services in the safety of the client’s home. Just with a simple call or message, you will be able to receive healthcare services at home known as “home visits” without exposing you to hospitals and clinics that have concentrated covid cases. Similar to these services, CHNs may also provide mobile consultations and diagnostics or shift from face-to-face consults to teleconsults to meet the needs of social-distance.
The various modern and technological techniques applied by community health
nurses to still be able to provide healthcare services to the community atop the pandemic is a valuable move in the advancements of community health nursing in this ever-evolving healthcare landscape, molded by the pandemic.
2. Is Community Health Nursing still essential during the pandemic?
Without a doubt, community health nurses are the unsung heroes during this time of the pandemic; a pandemic that has changed the course of the community now more than ever. Just like how the nurses changed the trajectory of the Crimean war, they are also the ones with the big guns as we fight off an invisible enemy that has taken the life of millions. Public health nurses are the ones serving in the frontlines of this global crisis that has impeded what we know to be the “normal” flow of life in the community. They are the ones investigating and reaching out to individuals as they contact-trace and hopefully prevent further community outbreaks of the disease. CHNs are also the ones with a big role in the dissemination of information and deliver educative roles to the community about the pandemic and the ways to stop the spread and hopefully curb the numbers down. Community health nursing in this time of the pandemic has never been more crucial considering that the provisions of their services is what’s keeping the backbone of our society from collapsing on itself. Without completely knowing it, we have been relying on their functions as nurses considering that they are proven responders as these infectious diseases proliferate, providing safe, efficient, effective, and just care to the communities in which they chose to serve. Not to mention, the vaccination drives that have greatly lessened the number of cases and deaths caused by the virus are led and provided by these nurses all the while engaging with individuals to support and validate their personal struggles and experiences, thereby reducing fear and stigmas. Furthermore, community health nurses play a role in working with local government units to review and improve the system in which their services are centered upon, allowing for open discussions towards change and improvement of emergency plans, operations, and provision of laws. Given this, it is without a doubt that community health nursing provides an essential support and foundation that has kept the backbone of society from collapsing in on itself as the weight of this pandemic has proven to be heavy and destructive towards society.