OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSING
Occupational Health Nursing
Nickflor Jean
Chamberlain University College of Nursing
NR443 Community Health Nursing
11/2018
Occupational Health Nursing
Occupation health nursing is a nursing field that deals with the development of programs that enhance the health and safety of workers. They also observe workers who have got injuries while doing their jobs. Occupational health nurses (OHNs) are those nurses that practice in the fields, industries, and communities. They are charged with the responsibility of improving the wellbeing of workers on their job and those in the community. They have very diverse roles and the place that such a nurse is employed will determine the kind of duties that they execute. For instance, those nurses that are employed in industries will be responsible for observing workers who are executing their activities to determine their health status. They also offer emergency assistance to those employees that get injured (World Health Organization, n.d).
Community Setting
Community health nurses work in the community, industries and other workplaces. Each workplace has got challenges that they face. Some challenges are unique while others are common. For example, those working in the construction industry can be injured by falling stones and other construction equipment. Community health nurses work in such environments to assess the chances of such challenges and how they can be solved. They ensure that the workers are safe in their place of work. Some occupational nurses and work in clinics hospitals and other health centers but most of them are hired by employers in various diverse industries.
Occupational Health nurses offer a lot of assistance but I shall only discuss three of them. One, they help in primary prevention. They assess the working environment and identify the possible hazards that may affect workers. They will then plan the possible interventions and thus reduce the possible hazards that may affect the employees. They can determine factors including workers habits and behavior that may endanger them in the workplace. Secondly, occupational health services offer emergency care to the workers. These have a lot of clinical experience and expertise while dealing with sick or injured employees. Before the nurses transfer the injured workers to better hospitals for specialized care, they will provide emergency care like giving first aid. Lastly, these nurses treat workers whenever they fall ill. They prescribe the needed treatment to employees to give them stable working conditions.
Health Promotion Nurse Intervention
Nursing interventions are those actions that a nurse undertakes to assist patients or workers to achieve certain aims. The occupational nurse will have to apply the skills and knowledge learned and the experience acquired through their practice to promote the health welfare of workers in various environmental stings. In the industrial working environment, the nurses will have to start programs that will improve the welfare of employers and employees. Such programs should also influence the behavior of the employees to suit in the environment and reduce any health hazards.
The best intervention that an occupational health nurse can initiate in the industrial environment is putting in place measures that will reduce exposure of workers to chemicals and dust that will lead to cancer, asthma, pulmonary diseases among others. The nurse will educate the employees on the best dress code that suits different areas of the industry. For instance, when they are dealing with gas, the nurse can recommend using gas masks and when they are dealing with cement and such related material, the nurse will recommend using gloves to reduce contact. The management should enforce such recommendations to ensure that workers are in a safe environment and that they reduce the costs of healthcare. The nurses, through the provision of safety and health-working, will reduce operational costs and increase the profitability of the industry (Verbeek & Ivanov, 2013).
Professional Nursing Organization
Occupational Health Nurses are under the umbrella of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN). There is a professional nursing organization devoted to the provision of health, productivity, and safety of workers in the working environment. They do this by educating workers on the best behaviors and ways of reducing injuries in the workplace, researching possible cases of workplace hazards, influencing public policy to enhance the welfare workers. This group of nurses forms the largest group of professionals in the healthcare industry whose aim is to serve people in the worksite.
The AAOHN has a variety of functions. One, they define the range of activities that these nurses deal with. They also set standards that the nurses must adhere to while practicing nursing which is referred to as the AAOHN Code of Ethics. It supports the members in promoting workplace health and safety and promote the association and its members by encouraging research. The association has more than 4,000 members that are spread across the U.S. its territories and the world at large. The organization has over 100 agencies with each of them having its own by-laws. The association is led by a board of directors who are elected by the embers. They have a president, a secretary, and a president-elect. They have a total of 10 directors, 2 from each region (American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN), n.d).
Summary
Occupational health nurses are a critical part of employees in industries. As discussed above, such employees help their colleagues to work in an environment where they understand the hazards, possible causes and how they can avoid them. In case of injuries, the occupational health nurses offer emergency care, treatment, and diagnosis, educate the employer and employees, and doing research to establish the best ways to improve the well-being of employees. In so doing, they reduce the healthcare costs and improve the productivity of such organizations. There are various interventions that they implement but the selected one is helping employees to avoid or reduce exposure to health hazards in the organization. The AAOHN has helped such nurses through research, to promote the health of workers. The working environment is a better place with the presence of such nurses.
References
American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN). (n.d). About AAOHN. Retrieved from http://aaohn.org/page/about-aaohn
Verbeek, J. & Ivanov, I. (2013). Essential Occupational Safety and Health Interventions for Low- and Middle-income Countries: An Overview of the Evidence. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3732143/
World Health Organization. (n.d). Role of the occupational health nurse in the workplace (The). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/occupational_health/publications/eurnursing/en/
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