The Analysis Of Vulnerability In Nursing Literature

Nursing is more than a profession taught by science. It is an art that the nurse refines through the creative use of oneself based on the skills and expertise, to transmit emotions and meaning to the patient. Nursing is a process that is subjective and requires interpretation, sensitivity, imagination and active participation. A core skill utilized by a nurse is advocacy, both for our patients and our profession. Our profession requires participation of advocacy at all levels of nursing, starting at the bedside and continuing all the way to nurses in legislation. To be a proficient patient advocate, the nurse must be able to assess the patient’s constant change in physical, psychological, spiritual, and social needs. I apply my knowledge

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2004). Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). Cambridge, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

As the society acknowledges the importance of human rights and dignity, the issues among the poverty, homeless, violence victims are now more considered. Although there are difference in roles between nurses from acute care, intensive care, and emergency settings nurses, community nurses engage those issues to become advocates for social justice. Health care nurses collaborate to identify strategies for incorporating social justice aims into their work environment (Johnstone, 2011). As a public nurses, there has been many researches to address vulnerability, diversity, health literacy, health care access, health care disparities and issues of particular populations such as ethnic and racial minority health, gay and lesbian health and the health of children, women and older adults (Johnstone, 2011). For example, affordable health care 2010 was implied for equitable delivery of healthcare for all individuals in United States. Although there are pro and cons on success of the system, it was aimed to promote the justice of human need to have least of health care when necessary. Among with the issues of inequality and unfairness of worldwide insurance system, this act was to provide fair access to health care. To achieve the aims of a just, accessible, affordable health care system for all, public health nurses make an effort to engage the professional advocacy.

Nursing practice has revolutionized itself throughout the years. Today we realize the causes of current illnesses as complex and multifaceted (source). In past models, for instance the medical model, the approach was straightforward and neglected the patients active involvement in their care; the patient was viewed as the passive recipient and the doctor, an active agent that “fixed” their patients. ( source). New developed models since then, such as the biopsychosocial model, show us that care focuses on many factors. The model demonstrates understanding of how suffering, disease, and illness can be associated by many factors seen at the different levels in society and the medical sciences (source). Caring for each component is

Changes in the Health Care System and the Practice of Nursing have become complex. Technological changes, complicated client needs, short hospital length of stay, and departure from acute care to community based care, all these changes have underscore the need for professional nurses to think critically in order to provide safe and effective client care. A better educated nursing workforce can provide good health education to patients and their families. The affordable care of 2010 has required the need for nurses to expand their role of practice to meet complicated patient demands. This has prompted the Institute Of Medicine to review the “Future of Nursing, Leading change and Advancing Health”. {Creasia & Fribery,2011}

Living in an environment with limited resources affects vulnerability in many ways. For example, those who are poor are continually faced with multiple risk factors that cause chronic stress, such as unsafe housing, repeated exposure to violence/crime, barriers to health care access (i.e. lack of insurance, lack of transportation, language barriers), and other limitations. Therefore, it is not unusual for an individual or community that is constantly bombarded by stressful situations to become immobilized. “In other words, they do not have the ability to effectively respond to even the

Every health professional has a legal obligation to patients. Nurses as part of the health care team share an important role in the quality and safe delivery of patient care. They have the major responsibility for the development, implementation and continuous practice of policies and procedures of an organisation. It is therefore essential that every organization offer unwavering encouragement and resources to support their staff to perform their duty of care in every patient. On the other hand, high incidences of risk in the health care settings have created great concerns for healthcare organizations. Not only they have effects on patients, but also they project threat to the socioeconomic status. For this reason, it is expected that all health care professionals will engage with all elements of risk management to ensure quality and safe patient delivery. This paper will critically discuss three (3) episodes of care from the case study Health Care Complaints Commission [HCCC] v Jarrett [2013] Nursing and Midwifery Professional Standards Committee of New South Wales [NSWNMPSC] 3 in relation to Registered Nurse’s [RN] role as a leader in the health care team, application of clinical risk management [CRM] in health care domains, accountability in relation to clinical governance [CG], quality improvement and change management practices and the importance of continuing professional development in preparation for transition to the role of RN.

Indeed, nurses play an indispensable role in connecting patients with a new culture of care and serving as a voice for the socially marginalized. My contribution to the mission of the Nurse Corps Scholarship program in providing care to underserved communities will entail great knowledge base of different medical conditions with the ability to know my patients, their family situations, their cultural identities, social situations, the barriers and challenges they face in dealing with their

Discuss how an understanding of nursing-sensitive indicators could assist the nurses in this case in identifying issues that may interfere with patient care.

Like demonstrated in chapter four of the book, they lose all sense of independence and privacy, and are forced to get dressed, take their medicine or do activities when told to instead of being able to decide for themselves. With the idea of assisted living, Keren Wilson will allow her mother to “be Jesse again, a person living in a apartment instead of a patient in a bed.”(Gawande, 2014, p. 89). I feel it is important to treat those with serious infirmities, like physical or mental weakness, with respect and independence because many of them don’t have a say or voice on where they are placed. They are unable to live on their own so they are forced to be put in nursing homes, where they become sheltered, abandoned, and sadly sometimes forgotten. This is why showing them respect, dignity, and giving them some independence will go a long way.

Social Vulnerability refers to risk as its primary element (Scanlon & Lee, 2007). Every individual is exposed to risk factors therefore; everyone is potentially vulnerable to health problems (Scanlon & Lee, 2007). Social vulnerability consists of various economic, democratic, and cultural variables in relation to an individual’s likelihood of becoming ill (Scanlon & Lee, 2007). The degree of social vulnerability is that an individual experience is greatly reliant on their personal capacity to tolerate adverse influences (Scanlon & Lee, 2007). Each individual will have different strategies and abilities in coping, resisting, and recovering from situations that could result in social vulnerability (Scanlon & Lee, 2007).

Nurses take on educator roles both in educating the public on their health and as educators in clinical practice and academic settings. As a public educator, nurses teach and counsel patients and families to enhance health and well-being. Patient and family health education is an important step in preventing disease. In order to be able to properly educate their clients on health promotion and well-being, nurses must first fully understand “health”. Nurses do not view health as “the absence of illness” but “define health as the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs and to change or cope with the environment in which they live.” (CARNA, 2005, p.2). Nurses hold a holistic view of the person and health and address health within the context of a person’s wholeness, including biological, emotional, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions. Incorporating these ideas, nurses use the determinants of health as a way of dealing with and achieving health for an individual. Nurses recognize the broad determinants of health as income & social status, education, culture, physical environments, gender, health services, social support networks, employment & working conditions, health services, personal health practices, and biology & genetic endowment.

In Bed Number Ten, Sue Baier shares her first-hand account of both her painful experiences and her lengthy recovery in the ICU setting. She was struck with the disabling effects of Guillain-Barre syndrome which resulted in her being admitted into an Intensive Care Unit. While there, her communication and mobility was very limited and made it very difficult for many of the staff to passionately and effectively take care of her. She describes multiple accounts of nurses and staff who were task oriented and failed to meet her physical and emotion needs. Her sense of isolation and inhumane treatment transpires from the pages to the heart of the reader. However, in the book, we observe a few staff that were sensitive to her condition and took care of her the way a person should be taken care of. Sue’s hardship and experience is one of perseverance in her time in the ICU and gives an outlook of how to be sensitive to critical care patients, as it should be.

Vulnerability is defined as susceptibility or increased risk for health problems (DeChesnay, 2008).  A group of individuals are considered at higher risk for illness when their physical, emotional, psychological, or social health, is compromised (Aday, 2001).  There are many leading causes for why a population is considered at higher risk; socioeconomic, age, gender, demographics, personal, and cultural backgrounds are some of the key factors (Aday, 2001; Sebation, 1996). Individuals can become vulnerable at any time because of change in life circumstances, placing them at higher risk. One group

Stanhope and Lancaster (2008) define vulnerable populations as “those defined at a greater risk for poor health status and health care access”(p.712). The role of a public health nurse in contrast to a vulnerable population is to establish interventions to help break the cycle of vulnerability thus aiding to eliminate health disparities within the population. The term “risk” helps public health nurses establish a person probability of something happening to them. This epidemiological term is used with the triangle of host, agent and environment in contrast to ones health within a population. The author will discuss vulnerability as discovered within a community based on surveying the community and establishing risk and interventions on the