Nursing plays a vital role in the field of Epidemiology. When evaluating and investigating disease, recognizing what is happening and identifying to whom a particular disease is affecting can be apparent. However, why the outbreak is occurring tends to be harder to discern. Nurses can aid in the process of determining why through practices of nurses that are done every day with every patient. Nurses play a pivotal role in surveillance through their data collection or charting. Nurses assess patients, typically with a few broad questions about the patient and their health and then refine their questions to more in-depth issues related to patient complaints or abnormal findings. This information can be very helpful when collecting data,
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Many times nurses and advanced practitioners are the forefronts to prevention. One example that quickly comes to mind, due to the season, is the flu. Every year nurses and advanced practitioners work to prevent the flu. Patients are evaluated and screened for the illness or their need for the vaccine. Advanced practitioners can run tests on those suspected of having the flu in efforts to treat and reduce transmission. However, healthy individuals and the populations identified as at risk (those who are very young, those who are very old, and those who suffer from other illnesses) are educated by both the nurse and the advanced practitioner. Focus is on recognition of signs and symptoms and ways to reduce transmissions, such as isolation or avoidance of those with fevers, covering a cough, frequent hand washing, and wearing masks around those who are deemed immunocompromised. Both the nurse and the advanced practitioner will work together to promote awareness of the flu and help patients find locations to receive the vaccination. In the hospital I currently work at, I am expected to help enforce the visitor restrictions. During flu season, we do not allow individuals under the age of 18 to visit, and visitors that are sick are asked to refrain from entering the hospital to visit their loved ones which is helpful in the reduction of risk of other acquiring the flu. Each employee is also required to receive the flu vaccine, which
Many times nurses and advanced practitioners are the forefronts to prevention. One example that quickly comes to mind, due to the season, is the flu. Every year nurses and advanced practitioners work to prevent the flu. Patients are evaluated and screened for the illness or their need for the vaccine. Advanced practitioners can run tests on those suspected of having the flu in efforts to treat and reduce transmission. However, healthy individuals and the populations identified as at risk (those who are very young, those who are very old, and those who suffer from other illnesses) are educated by both the nurse and the advanced practitioner. Focus is on recognition of signs and symptoms and ways to reduce transmissions, such as isolation or avoidance of those with fevers, covering a cough, frequent hand washing, and wearing masks around those who are deemed immunocompromised. Both the nurse and the advanced practitioner will work together to promote awareness of the flu and help patients find locations to receive the vaccination. In the hospital I currently work at, I am expected to help enforce the visitor restrictions. During flu season, we do not allow individuals under the age of 18 to visit, and visitors that are sick are asked to refrain from entering the hospital to visit their loved ones which is helpful in the reduction of risk of other acquiring the flu. Each employee is also required to receive the flu vaccine, which