Nursing Community Practice Portfolio

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Assessment 3:Nursing Community Practice Portfolio
Kelvin Makohliso
HNB3209-NURSING AND COMMUNITY
Word count 3000
Tutor:Ms Dorota Frankowska.

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Part 1
Improving and Promoting Community Health (IPC) Wyndham is a local community health
centre that provides healthcare to Wyndham Vale and its surrounding areas (IPC Health, 2018). I
had the privilege of undertaking a two-week community placement here at IPC Wyndham. Artefacts
1-22 presented shows the car park, main entrance, main reception, and IPC services and treatment
rooms.
The integrated super clinic provides multidisciplinary services like counselling, general
health, allied health, child, youth and family health. They also provide services like aged and disabled
services, chronic conditions management, and health promotion along with needle exchange, and
self-help and support services. General nursing, maternal health nursing, physiotherapy, social work,
and General practitioner consultations (GP consultations) are also available (IPC Health, 2018)
(9,11,13).
IPC Wyndham provides facilities like bulk billing, free interpreters and free immunizations
especially for special population groups like children and refugees which promotes equity. ”Health
equity is achieved by removing unfair and avoidable barriers that compromise health and wellbeing.
The practice of health equity is focused on supporting fair access, fair chances and fair resources
distribution to alleviate any disadvantage experienced by high risk or vulnerable groups”(Tasmania
Government,2018). IPC Wyndham is accessible 8 hours a day and also provides home visits for its
clients. They are also support many organisations which include the Western Health, Salvation Army,
Wyndham City Council and Better Hearing Australia (IPC Health, 2018). This is in line with creation of
a supportive environment as per Ottawa Charter (2015). Support from large institutions like Western
health enables them to deliver evidence-based practice to their clients (artefact 6).
Part 2:
According to Duquesne University (2018), community nurses act as nurse educators, disease
and injury prevention specialists, research scientist, community advocates, emergency preparedness
experts, public health liaison and Healthcare professionals.
Kalosch and Aebersold (2016), noted that the registered nurse’s (RN) job is fast-paced as
well as stressful, which is associated with multitasking and interruptions. Our educator at IPC Health
also constantly multitasked and was frequently interrupted by team members and patients. In terms
of her major role and responsibilities she delivered a safe, effective evidence-based nursing care,
initiated and maintained a therapeutic relationship with patients. The nurse also practiced holistic a
care which included patient's family, provided timely and accurate information to individuals and
families to promote health, supervision and mentoring of nursing students, practiced within
professional and ethical boundaries, and referred patients to appropriate services ( Willging, Salvador
& Kano, 2006). The educator also maintained care plans and health assessment guidelines, criteria,
and requirements to ensure legal and ethical compliance. She maintained up to dated accurate
database of care plans and health assessments including reviews and reminder systems (which are
normally done by ward clerk in hospitals) (artefact 24).

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Working as a nurse at IPC Health involves being an educator for the patients and also the
nursing students (artefact 25-27). Our educator taught students to master areas like vaccinations
safety checks, proper documentation of notes and reminding students that the notes were a legal
document. Papastavrou et al (2010) in a study which was done in Cyprus, found out that even
though in hospital, students were mentored in larger group model, the ones who reported to be
more satisfied with educator's mentorship were the ones with a personal mentor. Nursing and
Midwifery Board of Australia (2018), states that nurses under the domain of professional integrity
are expected to commit themselves to teaching, supervising and assessing the students and other
nurses in order to develop the nursing staff across all area of practice. The nurses always maintain
privacy by always closing treatment room’s doors and curtains (artefact 22).Educating patients to
manage their own chronic conditions is known as patient empowerment which is needed in
healthcare. Caughey et al (2008), found out that Chronic conditions are a major burden to health
and they cause disability. The prevalence of comorbidity is high in 80% of elderly population having 3
or more chronic conditions.
The IPC Health RN practised wound dressings and reviews. Patients came in with chronic
wounds especially diabetic patients. Once our educator had to prepare the patient for sutures
stitching similarly to a theatre nurse. The nurse at IPC Health is part of a multidisciplinary team, and
we observed her often consulting other nurses for a second opinion and she also worked closely in
liaison with a GP. Neumann et al (2010) noted that the basis for good team working includes agreed
aims, agreement, and understanding on how to best achieve these. A multi-professional team with
an appropriate range of knowledge and skills, mutual trust and respect, willingness to share
knowledge and skills and expertise is expected to speak openly.
According to Muntean, Tomita and Ungureanu (2013), there are responsibilities for health
promotion, directly through education designed to help maintain health. By providing the necessary
care for re-establishing it, and indirectly by promoting respect towards human dignity this can be
carried out. In Romanian studies, they found out that the more the nurses in an area, the fewer the
rates of patients’ deaths. Our educator taught the patients the benefit of following a good diet,
exercising and regular check-ups, and as expected, the compliant patients were the ones who always
had a positive outcome (Debesay et al., 2014). One of the health promotions was the distribution
and education of the utilisation of condoms and educational free brochures (artefact 15).
Muntean et al (2013) argued that Health was defined by UN as a "Physical, mental and social
complete wellbeing". IPC Health nurses provide holistic approach to care by providing sporting and
art opportunities for the children to keep them active, and household items for refugees and
struggling families helps in alleviating patients’ stress (artefact 28,).
Our educator administered free immunizations for children and refugees. Looking after the
medication stock also requires checking the fridge temperature every shift and notifying supplier of
the vaccines for further instructions if the fridges break down (artefact 20, 23). It is the nurses' sole
responsibility to check children's immunization history from their history book, history of their visits
to the doctor or on Australian immunization register (IPC Health, 2018). IPC Health RN always double
checked the vaccines with a doctor or another nurse before administering it. Australian Nurses and
Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Victoria Branch (2018) stipulates that all intravenous, subcutaneous,
epidural, intrathecal, and schedule 8 medication for inpatients, prior to administration should be
checked by two authorized personnel before administering.
According to Hughes et al (2008), community nurses must maintain a safe practice
environment which reflects compassion and vigilance for the patient’s welfare that is important as