Reflection Artifact

 Community health nursing 11 is a very broad course. Studying it has helped me in learning more about the AACN Baccalaureate Essentials that are crucial for the development of a professional nurse. Due to the dynamic nature of the healthcare delivery system, it thus important to understand the AACN Baccalaureate Essentials and learn how, as a nurse, one can put them into practice and this helps to create a safer healthcare system. It is now understandable that nursing bears the potential of making the greatest impact by enhancing changes in the healthcare delivery system. These changes are meant to achieve a safer, high quality, and a cost-effective system. The study of the course has helped to increase my awareness on the need of changes in the healthcare systems to ensure there’s an improvement in the outcomes (American Psychological Association, 2009). This course has expanded my knowledge on the environments where the professional nurses operate which has become more diverse and global in nature.

The study of this course has helped me in development the values and standards relevant in addressing the advancing changes being experienced in the field of technology, demographics, and economics. Trends analyzed in this course include the aging of population, diversity in the families, expanding global interdependence as well as the economic and political changes which affect the healthcare system. This course has equipped me with the ability to combine knowledge, skills and value from the art and science aspect of nursing which will enable me to offer humanistic, safe quality care, be an advocate, and work to promote social justice.

Through this course, it has been made more clear on the importance of organizational and systems leadership, quality improvement, and safety on enhancing high-quality care. It is evident that nursesS require leadership skills to facilitate ethical and critical decision making, maintain effective relationships, and promote effective communication as well as conflict resolution. This has prepared me well to function at the microsystem level in a dynamic healthcare system. It will be easy to understand and implement the quality improvement ideas, processes, and result measures.

Studying this course has made me appreciate and understand principles of professional nursing especially based on the evidence based practice. This facilitates the conversion of gathered evidence into practice. A professional nurse is placed in a unique position to monitor patient outcomes and recognize practice issues. This not only develops an understanding of the process of research, clinical judgment and application of patient preference but also acts as a foundation that creates deeper understanding that is applied in the graduate level. This understanding of evidence based practice is essential in enlightening me as a nurse on the changing practices and how to make appropriate clinical judgments (American Psychological Association, 2009).

This course has equipped me with the necessary skills in information management and the use of technology in patient care. I have developed the greater understanding of the technical skills in use and other patient care technologies. It is important for graduates to be in a position to use information technology system such as decision support systems to collect evidence necessary to pave way for practice. It is understandable that the creation of cost effective and safe healthcare systems depends on application of evidence-based practice, having multidisciplinary care coordination, and use of electronic health records. This requires a deep understanding of information management and technology which has been extensively developed under this course.

The course has brought out importance of understanding the healthcare policies on financial regulation and how they directly and indirectly affect the nursing practice and the success of healthcare system. It is now clear that these policies provide responses to organizational, local, national, and international issues in equity, access, cost, and social justice. I have now come to understand that the healthcare policies are critical to discussions on quality and safety of practice environment. I now have solid understanding of wider context of healthcare especially on how patient care services can be organized, financed and reimbursements processed. The role of regulatory agencies in enhancing nursing practice has been well developed through learning more about the scope and role of these agencies. By studying this course, it now comprehensible how healthcare systems are recognized, and how the development process leads to expansion and chaining of the healthcare policy. I now understand ways in which healthcare shapes the nature, quality, and safety of practice environment (American Psychological Association, 2009).

As nurse, I have come to appreciate the role of engaging in the political process and advocate for patients’ welfare, families, communities and other necessary changes required in the healthcare system. The process of advocacy also encompasses representation of the vulnerable population targeting to uplift moral justice through means that are moral and ethical.

It is clear that the course has enlightened me on the strategies for prevention and early detection of diseases. In the nursing practice, there is need to enhance clinical prevention that refers to tasks focused at preventing any escalating diseases and conditions. These interventions are normally spread out through a longer period of practice of a nurse. Nurses work hand in hand with other specialists to help maintain a healthy status by the means of clinical prevention. With a closer look into the population, it is notable that nursing has helped greatly in health promotion and disease prevention. I have acquired the necessary skills to deal with population focused care. As a practitioner, I will be better placed to carry out an assessment of the protective and addictive factors in a community which affects health. It will be easier to manageable and carry out a health history in order to identify the environmental exposure and the family issues that introduce current and future health problems (AACN, 2008).

Besides understanding all the nursing technical issue of care management, it is very important to understand professional values and the expected behavior in the field of nursing practice. Nurses are expected to maintain high levels of professionalism. Professionalism represents the ability to continuously indicate core values in the nursing practice as well as connection with other specialists in promoting optimal health and positive outcomes among the patients. It has been made clear to me that a nurse is required to be accountable all ethical issues in nursing practice (AACN, 2008). I will be tasked with the responsibility of delegating task in a manner that is consistent to the nurse’s obligations. To maintain ethics in the profession, I have come to understand better how the ethical behaviors among the nurses are guided by values such as altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity and social justice (AACN, 2008). In overall, I agree that the course has improved my knowledge on nursing practice

References

AACN. (2008). The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Retrieved from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1h12LJ8jXL4J:www.aacn.nche.edu/education-resources/BaccEssentials08.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-b-ab

American Psychological Association. (2009) Publication manual of the American Psychological Association(6th). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. ISBN: 978-1433805615.