Innovative Nursing

Introduction

The county school rotation preventive care delivery model (CSRPCD) is an approach that nurses can use in prevention of the spread of communicable diseases among schoolchildren. The settings for this model are all the public elementary schools in the Union County of Florida. The United States Census Bureau (2015) reports that the region has 15,234 residents, and persons under the age of 18 comprise 19.4% of the population making it relevant to implement the model in partnership with the county department of health. This paper provides a description of the proposed strategy with a focus on the significance of nurses in the approach, collaborations, care delivery across settings, along with technology to be utilized, and examines the implementation and evaluation of the model.

Description of the Model

This model is nurse-initiated in collaboration with the county department of health and geared towards preventing the spread of communicable diseases in the public elementary schools. According to Shivalli, Gupta, Mohaptra and Srivatsara (2013), school going children are vulnerable to contagious diseases due to unawareness of the prevention strategies. Therefore, the chief nurse will direct all primary healthcare facilities to identify one nurse who can visit the elementary schools after every two weeks to teach children and promote activities that encourage proper hygiene, such as brushing teeth, washing hands, and doing laundry among others.

After every four weeks, the primary health care nurses can schedule a day go to the school and check the environment and the immunization status of the children. The comprehensive information about any communicable disease case can be reported and stored in the county database. In addition, the nurse can ask for funding from the county department of health to ensure preventive measures for all at-risk children. Nurses can also engage teachers in terms of identification and reporting about the case of communicable diseases noted during their interaction with the children.

Nurse-led and nurse-managed healthcare. At the county level, the chief nursing officer is the one in charge of managing all the resources, such as time, personnel, budget, and materials. At the school level, nurses are the ones responsible for sensitization about community health diseases to the children. In such cases, nurses are also the ones to diagnose, treat children at primary care facilities, and initiate preventive measures to avoid spread of the disease. Parker et al. (2013) contend that nurses are efficient in the delivery of primary healthcare and there is a positive perception of the community towards them. Therefore, the active participation of nursing leadership at all levels will ensure efficient implementation of the model.

Partnerships and collaborations. The first collaboration is with the county department of health that is instrumental when it comes to funding of the needed operations. The second collaboration is with the teachers who can identify some symptoms of communicable diseases in children and report them to the nurses. At the primary healthcare facility, officers in charge of health records are essential for keeping information about the number of visits a nurse has made, the identified and treated cases, along with the preventive strategies.

Continuity of care across settings. If a child visits any healthcare facility, healthcare providers can access the information regarding the patient and their medical history. Healthcare workers can ask about the residence of the child and the school they attend. However, this only applies to individual children and not the whole community.

Technology. The technology required for the model is the database for accumulating the evidence about diseases, treated patients, and nursing operations. The information from the database is significant for follow-up of the children in the communities and monitoring the progress of the model.

Implementation Team for the Model

Each team member in this model has a vital function. First, the chief county nursing officer is the one in charge of the approach. The role of the nursing officer is to coordinate all the functions, manage all the resources, and bridge the gap between the county department of health and the primary healthcare facilities. Second, nurses at the primary care facilities are instrumental since they are the ones who teach the children, communicate with teachers, diagnose diseases, treat them, and do the follow-ups. Third, the county department of health is critical since it provides funding and carries out the monitoring by analyzing the database. Finally, the officers in charge of health records are instrumental since they help in capturing all the data during the implementation of the model. Such data are critical since these ensure the efficiency of the model by improving necessary communications (Sillow-Caroll, Edwards & Rodin, 2012).

Evaluation of the Model Outcomes

Evaluation of this model should be conducted in the school after every 4 weeks. The first outcome measured in this model is to examine if children have mastered the preventive measures of infectious diseases, such as washing hands after visiting the toilet, taking a shower every day, and ensuring proper dental hygiene, to name a few. Additionally, the attitude of the teachers regarding the program will be analyzed through the questionnaires. The success of the model can also be monitored by comparing the collected information with the pre-intervention findings. Finally, the chief nurse can conduct a survey in all primary healthcare facilities to analyze the attitude of nurses towards the program.

Conclusion

The county school rotation preventive care delivery model aims to increase children awareness of the communicable diseases and plan on how to avoid them. The active participation of the nurses, teachers, health record officers, and the county department of health is instrumental in ensuring the success of the model. The intervention’s outcomes can be analyzed by evaluating the knowledge of the children about the contagious diseases and the attitudes of all the parties involved in the implementation of this approach.