This week marks the fourth annual Community and Primary Health Care Nursing Week; raising awareness of the contributions and benefits of community and primary nurses to the health system.
To celebrate, Kitty Hutchison, Nurse Educator Community from Metro South shared why it is important to have nurses where we need them.
The demands on healthcare services from a population that is both aging and needing increasing support for the complex needs of chronic disease are becoming more difficult to meet. In Australia and internationally, governments and health professional bodies are searching for ways to meet these demands. Rising healthcare costs, fragmentation and lack of coordination between existing services available from primary to acute hospital tertiary care, our specialisation and disease focus in healthcare provision all add to the difficulties in finding a solution.
Community and Primary Health Care (C&PHC) Nurses are well placed to play a major role in the coordination and linking of patients across our often-fragmented services. We have seen the introduction of the nurse navigator role in Queensland Health provide an opportunity to connect primary and secondary healthcare services across the patient healthcare journey. This addition has been welcomed by the C&PHC nurses that have struggled to meet the needs they can see for their community within the remit of their own roles.
Nurses working in Community and Primary Health Care settings utilise the principles of primary health care in their approach. This approach incorporates the social, economic and environmental influences on the patient’s health. These considerations or social determinants of health, are overlapping factors that influence health and wellbeing and shift the focus from simply addressing a person’s health problems to a person-centred approach. This person-centred approach to care not only considers the perspectives of the individual and their family, but also actively educates and empowers them to participate and make decisions in their own care planning.
The Australian College of Nurses considers the roles of C&PHC nurses to be an essential link in our care for all people across their whole lifespan. I am proud to be a member of ACN and the C&PHCN Community of Interest, which enables my voice to join with hundreds of other C&PHC Nurses to share our vision for a future of healthcare in our country that truly meets the health needs of the community we serve.
To all my Queensland Health Nursing colleagues,
Happy Community and Primary Health Care Nurses Week!
Please join us and share your thoughts and celebrations.
#NursesWhereYouNeedThem.
Be Seen, Be Heard… Belong.
Yours in Nursing,
Kitty Hutchison
Nurse Educator Community Metro South Health
Chair Community and Primary Health Care Nurses Community of Interest
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