Nursing Portfolio: Kyneton District Health Service and Community Nursing

Running head: NURSING PORTFOLIO
Nursing Portfolio
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Answer to question 1
I have been placed at the Kyneton District Health Service (KDH). It is the local health
service as the part of the Macedon Ranges community for over 160 years. These services help
population of 42000 people living in the surrounding areas and at Macedon Ranges Shire
Council. This pace is populated with 47, 512 people. The area comprise of maximum number of
people at post-retirement age and fewer number of preschoolers in the district. There is high
demand for age-based services. It is fulfilled through My Aged care service and supporting the
older people in the community. The Treehouse program is the health care delivery at home. It is
an innovative social program for caring life-limiting illness at home. The KDH health service
works with the vision of giving positive experience to every person. The service is delivered in
collaboration with the Cobaw Community health service, regional health care partners and the
medical professionals. The goal of the service is to provide care that is patient-centered, right and
safe (Kyneton District Health, 2018).
Acute services in KDH contain wide range of specialists to provide procedure such as
laparoscopy up to medium complexity. The hospital has the pharmacy department in the acute
ward that supplies medications as scheduled for the patient care adding convenience during the
hospital stay and discharge. The hospital has the haemodialysis unit, pathology service and also
own radiology department. The hospital also contains the allied health services including the
social work and physiotherapy. The social workers at the Kyneton provide supportive
counselling, practical support, therapy, and advocacy and referral service. The hospital provides
the counselling services to the families needing grief and trauma support. Group work is
provided to families who have lost a child. These services are meant for improving the well

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being of the community. The physiotherapists care for inpatients in the acute ward, aged care
patients in the transitional care program, and others in the community. The physiotherapists also
carry out the Post-Acute Care home visits.
The hospital also provide the home care involving the “Macedon Ranges community
nursing”, district nursing, transition care program, “hospital in the home” program,
“Macedon Ranges Palliative Care Services" and post-acute care. Older people can access the
transition care if hospitalised while arranging for long-term care. Outreach nurses can visit the
patient's home without cost to reduce the hospital stay, and treat the illness. Community nursing
is provided to each patient. Palliative care is provided to the patients with terminal illness and
encompasses the psychological, spiritual and emotional support. Post-acute care is meant for the
public patients who are at risk of unplanned re-admission to hospital after illness or surgery
(Kyneton District Health, 2018).
KDH also includes maternity and the surgical services (medical, surgical, diagnostic,
obstetric and gynaecological care. The hospital is well equipped with facility for elective
caesarean birth, information sessions, childbirth education classes for parents and breastfeeding
classes. The surgeries are provided in various areas like dermatology, urology, plastic surgery
and others (Kyneton District Health, 2018).
Answer to question 2
In the same clinical setting, was placed one of the buddy nurses. The role of the district
nurse in the division community nursing included serving people of all ages to help people
manage the health in home and give quality support (Reed, Fitzgerald & Bish, 2015). The above
role of the buddy nurse as a part of the district nursing aligns with the position summary where it

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is mentioned that they must contribute to the multidisciplinary team. The registered nurse in
district nursing is responsible to the NUM community nursing. The district nurse works to
achieve high standards of evidenced-based nursing care. It is the role of the nurse to ensure
positive treatment outcomes by implementing the evidence-based practice as well as ensure the
privacy and confidentiality of patient (Kyneton District Health, 2018).
The buddy nurse regularly monitored the vital signs of the visited patients and conducted
relevant observation and assessment. It includes blood pressure, heart rate, pulse rate, respiratory
rate, and others. The comprehensive patient assessment is in alignment with the standard 4 of
the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council, registered nurse standards
(Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2018). The buddy nurse assisted the patients with the wound
management such as change of dressing and maintaining aseptic wound care. The nurse gave
pain medication and managed symptoms’ like nausea. The nurse looked after the medication
management as well as after the catheter to prevent infections. It is evident of the knowledge in
central venous access device knowledge (Reed, Fitzgerald & Bish, 2015). While caring for the
patens with diabetes, the nurse educated the patients about on time intake of medication and
consequences of missing the right dosages (Heneka et al., 2018). Further, health education
includes adherence to the care plan, lifestyle modifications required by the patient such as weight
loss, physical activity, diet recommendations, and self-monitoring of blood glucose. These
measures taken by the nurse is evidence of proficiency in wound management, and diabetes. It is
the key selection criteria of the registered nurse – district nurse (Lee et al., 2015).
The buddy nurse worked in alignment with the position summary where accountability
and responsibility of the own practice must be assumed based on the level of education and
competence. The above role played by the buddy nurse is found to be similar with the standard 3