Health Promotion Plan for COPD and the Role of Community Nursing in Australia

Introduction:

This assignment will present a health promotion plan for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). In this context, it will discuss the scope of community nursing in Australia. Then it will discuss the skill and competencies in managing and preventing COPD. Moreover, it will also demonstrate the risk assessment and occupational health and safety in the health promotion plan of COPD.

LO1: Analyses the scope of community nursing and interprofessional practise in Australia

In Australia, community nursing plays a crucial role in supporting families m, groups and community people by determining, considering and meeting all their health needs. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of premature deaths in Australia (Carron et al. 2017). COPD is a chronic lung disease in which patients suffer from severe inflammation in the airways which leads to reduced oxygen supply to alveoli. Community nursing in Australia plays a crucial role in providing high standard nursing care to families and people who suffer from this health condition. Therefore, community nursing focuses on determining the health needs of COPD patients at the community level rather than emphasizing the personalized health needs of an individual (Burhan et al. 2019). In Australia, community nurses are able to see the entire picture of the health needs of the community people who suffer from COPD. In this way, community nursing in Australia provides good opportunities to the nurses to work with diverse people who live with COPD, supporting their different types of health needs and conduct effective health promotion for them.

In Australia, community nursing provides the opportunity to the nurses to have a better understanding and perspectives of the diverse health condition, different health issues of families who live with COPD (Cicutto et al. 2020). In this process, community care nurses in Australia have high scope in developing a clear concept on the NMBA standards, the governmental healthcare policies and practices that need to be implemented into the practices to promote the positive health and wellbeing of people (Carron et al. 2017).

In Australia, community nursing is strongly associated with providing maximum effort in that part of the community in which people have fewer health care resources, poor facilities and healthcare supplies (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). Here community nurses in Australia, have high scope in developing their understating and concept in how to support deprived people who live with COPD to improve the living standard and condition by providing them with a high standard of care and support.

Community care nurses in Australia are provided with good scope in involving with the partnership working in the interprofessional practices with different team members (Carron et al. 2017). Here community nurses work with different health care professions, social care staffs, local healthcare committees and voluntary and statutory healthcare organizational. In this process, community nurses have high scope in developing their adaptability skills.

LO2: Appraise advantages and limitations of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Australia and globally:

Advantages:

Primary healthcare can be considered as the frontline system in Australia. Primary healthcare (PHC) is the healthcare framework in which a patient is first encountered (Carron et al. 2017). It is not associated with hospital admission, prevention and management of diseases in hospital settings and intervention. There are several advantages of PHC in australis which are as follows:

The first layer of Australia’s health service:

PHC forms the first layer of healthcare services in Australia in which an individual with a kind of health concern is first encountered by the primary healthcare professional (Gardiner et al. 2020). In Australia, PHC acts as the frontline healthcare framework which is strongly associated with making the first contact with the patient with any health issue. Based on the health recommendation made by the primary healthcare professional, the patient is referred to the secondary healthcare professionals such as hospital setting.

In the case of early detection and diagnosis of COPD, PHC plays a crucial role, in Australia. PHC is strongly associated with maintaining a good recognition and response system of diseases (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). Under which while a person visits a GP clinic with breathing difficulties, shortness of breathing or heavy cough, the GP prescribes different types of tests to detect the lung issue. In Australia, there is a highly organized GP clinic that has highly skilled, experienced and well-trained GP (pulmonologists) who detect COPD by analyzing the health reports such as HRCT tests reports, spirometry reports and by checking O2 saturation by using a pulse oximeter.

Encompass a wide range of providers:

In Australia, PHC has a wide range of healthcare providers such as general practitioners (GPs), community care nurses, general practices nurses, allied health professionals, pharmacists, midwives, dentists and aboriginal health practitioners (Bailie et al. 2019). The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that more than 84% of people who suffer from COPD consulted with a GP for early prevention and management of this health condition (Gardiner et al. 2020).

In the case of treating COPD, GPs, community care nurses, allied medical staff, pharmacists play crucial roles in proving all kinds of healthcare support to patients (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). In this context, ASB shows that more than 45% of people who reside in the deprived communities in Australia and live with COPD are provided with proper inhalers, medicines (bronchodilators) by community care nurses and community health staff (Gardiner et al. 2020).

Wide ranges of health services:

PHC deals with the proper diagnosis and treatment of any health issue in patients. In this context, GPs first conduct a clear discussion with patients regarding the health condition and then recommend the different tests to make an in-depth analysis of the health condition (Bailie et al. 2019). In Australia, PHC plays crucial roles carrying out the effective diagnosis and treatment of COPD patients under which the patient is not only prescribed with proper medication but also is provided with proper health advice and health education by the community care nurses regarding how to improve patient’s lung condition by making lifestyles changes (El-Den et al. 2018).

PHC is strongly associated with effective health promotion globally, under which patients with any health condition are given proper health information to improve their self-management skills (Gardiner et al. 2020). In Australia, GPs, community care nurses, general practice nurses and pharmacists and community healthcare staff, work in association with COPD patients to promote the positive health and wellbeing of patients. Under this health promotion intervention, the primary health care providers would maintain regular communication with families who have COPD patients to understand the health issues that patients face and motivate them to improves their lifestyle and follow the prescribed medical regimen to have a healthy lung.

PHC plays a crucial role in preventing COPD by recommending proper remedies to deal with the health condition (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). In Australia, for effective prevention and management of COPD, GPs provide proper bronchodilators such as SABA abs LAMA which are highly effective medicine in improving the oxygen saturation in the lung thereby reduce the breathing difficulties in COPD patients (Ture et al. 2020).

Disadvantage:

The major disadvantage of PHC is that it does not associate with the hospital care facilities. There are many cases, in which the PHC is not appropriate for the patient rather the patient needs immediate hospital admission (Polosa et al. 2020). In tic context, PHC is not realistic and appropriate for managing a patient's health condition. In Australia, there are many COPD cases, in which patients suffer from severe breathing difficulties which cannot be managed in a GP clinic but a hospital setting.

Although in Australia PHC is highly organized and high standard care framework, still the ever-increasing number of COPD patient make it difficult for the GP to visits each patient by investing proper time (Marks, 2018). Due to a large number of patients in each clinic, GPs could not provide the attention and care while visiting the patients that the patients need. In this case, there is a high rate of patient’s dissatisfaction which interferes with the accountability and professional integrity of GPs.

Social determinants of health pose barriers and constraints on the ability of people to access PHC facilities in Australia (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). Unemployment, lack of education, lack of proper healthcare information, poor and backdate healthcare perspectives, lack of transports, poor infrastructure and lack of housing interfere with the outcomes of PHC (Abrahamsen et al. 2021).

LO4: demonstrate the skill and knowledge in assessment, planning and implementation

Under this health promotion plan for effective prevention and management of COPD, healthcare professionals must have the skill and professional knowledge on how to carry out a proper health assessment, intervention and the effective implementation of the care plan (Carron et al. 2017).

Here healthcare professionals must have good skills in using the proper tools and techniques in assessing the COPD health condition in patients (Cicutto et al. 2020). In this context, nurses must have the skill in carrying out HRCT (high resolution computed tomography test) for determining the level of inflammation and infection in the alveolus and airways (Burhan et al. 2019). HRCT test is a highly useful and widely used test that enables healthcare professionals to understand the breathing condition and the amount of oxygen that is received by alveoli at a time.

In this health promotion plan, the nursing professional must have good skills in carrying out spirometry tests to check the lung capacity in receiving oxygen. Under NMBA (2019), while assessing health conditions in any COPD patient, nurses must ensure that they must work under the level of competence and professional knowledge to ensure patient’s safety.

For this health promotion, healthcare professionals and nurses must have good knowledge in using the APIE tool and ABCDE assessment tool, which will enable them to make proper assessment and intervention in COPD patients (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017). Under APIE (assessment, plan, intervention and evaluation. Nurses would first assess the health condition of COPD patients and then make an effective care plan which is then evaluated to check its usefulness in meeting the health promotion goals (Carron et al. 2017). While using ABCDE tools, nurses must have the proper knowledge in checking airways' capacity in recovering oxygen, the breathing condition, circulation, disability of patients and exposure of patients to any medicine or harmful chemicals.

Based on the assessment and intervention, the health professional will implement and evaluate an effective care plan for COD management, under this care plan, an effective medication regimen would be conducted. The medication regimen will include proper medicines, (bronchodilators, inhalers), proper dietary advice and regular aerobic exercise.

LO5: Analyze the issues related to health compliance, outcomes and chronic disease management:

The major issue that healthcare providers face is the lack of skill and competencies in complying with the NMBA principles and Australian healthcare policies (Gardiner et al. 2020). For effective management and prevention of COPD, each healthcare provider must have the ability to comply with the healthcare policies and principles, to maintain their professional accountability towards patient’s health; promotion. Now lack of knowledge on NMBA standards, and other health care policies by nurses can pose barriers in meeting the goals of this health promotion plan (Taylor, Griffiths & Lilford, 2017).

Lack of an evidence-based approach in the care plan can interfere with the outcomes of the health promotion plan for effective management of COPD (Bailie et al. 2019). An evidence-based approach is crucial in using highly authentic and relevant assessment, intervention n and disease management tools for preventing and managing COPD.

Lack of corporation from COPD patients in obtaining the information of their premedical history, genetic history and ongoing medication can interfere with the management of COPD.

LO7: integrating the principle of occupational health and safety nursing practices, risk assessment with the community setting:

Under The Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984, and NMBA (2019) guidelines all the healthcare providers of this health promotion program nursing professionals will follow the below-mentioned aspects:

All the healthcare professionals and nurses under this health promotion plan will comply with the principles of The Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 to ensure the health and safety of their colleagues, and clients (Bailie et al. 2019).

Health providers must emphasize preventing injuries, diseases and accidents throughout this health promotion event.

An effective risk assessment framework would be developed under which if there is any risk has been identified it will be informed to the concerned Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) (El-Den et al. 2018).

The Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) who is involved in this health promotion plan must be well-trained and experienced to conduct effective management and prevention of COPD (Gardiner et al. 2020).

While collecting a blood sample from COPD patients, the healthcare staff must ensure that they are welt reined in the safe collection of body samples to eliminate any risk of blood-borne infection to patients or the health staff (Polosa et al. 2020).

Healthcare providers must ensure that they are well trained in manual handling thereby eliminating the chances of any kind of injury or accident during health promotion (Marks, 2018).

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Reference list:

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Bailie, J., Laycock, A., Matthews, V., Peiris, D., & Bailie, R. (2019). Emerging evidence of the value of health assessments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the primary healthcare setting. Australian journal of primary health, 25(1), 1-5.

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