I have Bullet points 2 and 3 to complete. The subject content is COVID-19:
2) Describe how nurses can become more involved, both as individuals and within the collective nursing community, in influencing health policy related to this issue. Include resources available.
3) Hypothesize how nurses can positively impact future outcomes related to the provision of care for persons affected by the health issue.
The total assignment is listed below:
In this final installment of the Health Issue Analysis CLC project, reflect on the individual and collective role of nurses in addressing your group’s chosen health issue. Impact of Nurses in Addressing Covid-19 Essay Paper
In a paper of 750-1,000 words, address the following:
Assess the past and present impact nurses, including advanced professional/advanced practice nurses, have made in addressing this health issue.
Describe how nurses can become more involved, both as individuals and within the collective nursing community, in influencing health policy related to this issue. Include resources available.
Hypothesize how nurses can positively impact future outcomes related to the provision of care for persons affected by the health issue.
Synthesize all aspects of the health care issue through a summary conclusion, concisely tying up Parts 1-6 of the CLC – Health Issue Analysis.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
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Past, Present, and Future Impact of Nurses in Addressing Covid-19
Nurses are known to be the single largest group of healthcare workers in any healthcare setting. Simply put, nurses are the backbone of healthcare services as delivered in any healthcare setting. For this reason, nurses are very instrumental in the success of handling and containing any public health issue. In this case it is the Covid-19 pandemic that has ravaged the population of the globe since the beginning of the year 2020. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a completely new virus suspected to have been a zoonotic infection. The first cases were reported from an animal market in Wuhan, China in late 2019 (Hu et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to outline the role that nurses have played and will continue to play in preventing and managing the outbreak of Covid-19.
The Past and Present Impact of Nurses on Covid-19, Including Advanced Practice Registered Nurses or APRNs
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Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus infection as the Covid-19 pandemic, nurses have borne the brunt of the disease. Thus is because nurses are the majority frontline workers who have to come into first contact with suspected cases of the disease. They have therefore put their lives at risk coming into contact with new cases as they take vital signs and also samples for testing. This has enabled the identification of new cases and planning for management of the condition. Because Covid-19 is a viral infection and therefore has no definitive cure, nurses have also been the ultimate resource persons when it comes to managing the symptoms of the Covid-19 patients. In other words, nursing care has been the single most important factor in the recovery from Covid-19 infection. Again, after the FDA approved the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use; it was nurses who were envisioned to administer the vaccines to the millions of Americans and other populations around countries in the world. Therefore, the burden of Covid-19 can be correctly said to have fallen on the shoulders of nurses. Unfortunately, this has cost many lives of nurses who have contracted the disease in the course of duty. The remaining nurses have also suffered untold burnout and stress from witnessing the deaths of both patients and colleagues (Hu et al., 2020; Jalili et al., 2020; Ross, 2020). APRNs on their part have been instrumental at the grassroots level in offering primary health care (PHC) to rural populations grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic in resource-limited settings. Impact of Nurses in Addressing Covid-19 Essay Paper
How Nurses Can Be More Involved in Battling Covid-19 at the Policy Level
At the individual level, nurses can make suggestions to the policy makers at their healthcare settings for improvement in the way Covid-19 patients are handled. These are the directors of the hospitals and nursing homes as well as other settings. An example could be suggesting early discharge of stable patients for home care to prevent them from contracting other hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). At the collective nursing community level, nurses can come together under the umbrella of the professional nursing organization such as the American Nurses Association (ANA) to lobby the federal and state governments to provide better mental healthcare (counseling and psychoeducation) to frontline nurses suffering stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout due to the Covid-19 workload (Ross, 2020).
How Nurses Can Positively Impact Future Outcomes for Covid-19 Patients
Nurses can positively impact the future outcomes for their Covid-19 patients in a variety of ways. The most important is health education and promotion. They can stress to the patients who have recovered that they still need to practice protection against the novel coronavirus by handwashing, wearing face coverings, and keeping social distance (Chu et al., 2020; Najnin et al., 2019). Then there is the education about vaccination and the need to continue practicing the protective measures above even after getting fully vaccinated. These actions will definitely improve future outcomes for the Covid-19 patients.
Conclusion
Nurses are the single most important group of healthcare workers who have had the greatest impact in managing cases and controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus.
References
Chu, D.K., Akl, E.A., Duda, S., Solo, K., Yaacoub, S., & Schünemann, H.J. (2020). Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 395, 1973-1987. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)31142-9
Hu, D., Kong, Y., Li, W., Han, Q., Zhang, X., Zhu, L.X., Wan, S.W., Liu, Z., Shen, Q., Yang, J., He, H-G., & Zhu, J. (2020). Frontline nurses’ burnout, anxiety, depression, and fear statuses and their associated factors during the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China: A large-scale cross-sectional study. EClinicalMedicine, 100424. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100424
Jalili, M., Niroomand, M., Hadavand, F., Zeinali, K., & Fotouhi, A. (2020). Burnout among healthcare professionals during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study. MedRxiv, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.12.20129650
Najnin, N., Leder, K., Forbes, A., Unicomb, L., Winch, P.J., Ram, P.K., Nizame, F.A., Arman, S., Begum, F., Biswas, S., Cravioto, A., & Luby, S.P. (2019). Impact of a large-scale handwashing intervention on reported respiratory illness: Findings from a cluster-randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 100(3), 742-749. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.18-0644
Ross, J. (2020). The exacerbation of burnout during COVID-19: A major concern for nurse safety. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jopan.2020.04.001. Impact of Nurses in Addressing Covid-19 Essay Paper