Person Centered Care in Community Settings

Running head: PERSON CENTERED CARE IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS
PERSON CENTERED CARE IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS
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PERSON CENTERED CARE IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS
Introduction:
Chronic disorders have become one of the present concerns in the nation, as it is
associated with huge economic outflow and wastage of resources that can be allotted to more
fruitful life objectives. The term chronic is often applied to the course of disorders that lasts for
more than three months. One of the most common chronic ailments that affect people of the
nation is diabetes (Osborn et al., 2015). 280 Australians are seen to develop diabetes everyday,
which accounts to about one person every five minutes. Around 1.7 million Australians are
suffering from diabetes in the present generation. This includes 1.2 million cases that are
registered as well as silent and undiagnosed type-2 diabetes which include about 50000 cases.
More than 100000 Australians have developed diabetes in the past year. Researchers are of the
opinion that for every diagnosed diabetes patients, there is usually a family member or a carer
who is also living with diabetes every day in the support role (Model, 2015). This shows than an
estimated 2.4 million people in the nation is affected by diabetes every day. This assignment will
show how primary care nurses in community settings can handle diabetes disorder among
patients effectively by following principles of patient centered care. This would ensure illness
prevention, promotion of self-management of people and would be responsive to changing
patient needs.
Primary healthcare:
Primary healthcare can be defined as the first level of contact that the individuals,
families as well as communities have with the healthcare systems. In Australia, primary
healthcare system is seen to incorporate personal care with health promotion along with the
prevention of illness and community development. Primary healthcare includes interconnecting

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PERSON CENTERED CARE IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS
principles of equity along with various access, empowerment, community self-determination as
well as inter-sectoral collaboration. These primary healthcare systems also encompass an
understanding of the social, economic, cultural as well as political determinants of health. Nurses
serving primary healthcare services in the community settings need to ensure socially appropriate
as well as universally accessible scientifically sound first level care to diabetes patient to make
the nation free from disease burden. They are seen to work independently as well as
interdependently in teams to ensure proper health outcomes for patients who come to seek for
healthcare services (Mossialos et al., 2015).
Community settings:
The responsibilities of the primary healthcare nurses working in the community settings
need to give priorities to diabetes patients who are mostly in need. They need to maximize
community as well as individual self-reliance, participation and even control of the diabetes
patients. They also need to ensure effective collaboration as well as partnership with other
sectors for promotion of the public health. Often diabetes patients might suffer from many other
negative outcomes like diabetic neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, foot ulcers, and
kidney issues. Therefore, they need help from multidisciplinary teams comprising of general
practitioners, nurses, podiatrists, dieticians and many other experts. Hence, nurses need to take
the responsibility of referring diabetic patients to proper experts and ensure them to get
comprehensive care (Sharma et al., 2016). Nurses in the community health care services mainly
work with people coming from various cultural backgrounds often with disadvantaged and
marginalized people. Nurses in the community healthcare work in partnership with their local
communities for prevention of diabetes and hence promote health across the lifespan (Johnson et
al., 2015). They try to achieve this by effectively identifying the barriers to the healthy lifestyles

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PERSON CENTERED CARE IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS
as well as ensuring general wellness of the service users who are suffering from diabetes. Such
nurses work with families and even communities for empowering individuals who access care to
change different unhealthy lifestyles that are resulting in insulin resistance and providing post-
acute care to the people in their homes so that they can manage blood glucose levels effectively.
Duties and responsibilities:
Primate healthcare nurses working in the community settings have to follow their duties
and responsibilities to ensure that people in communities live healthy lives free from diabetes.
They have specific roles that are different from that of nurses providing care in acute or long-
term care or in secondary and tertiary settings. It is important that a nurse considering working in
the community health is able to assume proper responsibilities and a leadership role. They need
to take initiatives in the emergencies and possess strong communication skills when diabetes
patients undergo severe conditions (Freund et al., 2015). They need to work autonomously as
well as a part of the team and maintain patience and discretion when providing healthcare to the
diabetes patients. They need to be open while working both in the clinical setting as well as in
the off-sites that would include conducting home visits. Often diabetes patients fail to manage
their symptoms successfully and may not undertake proper medication and check their blood
glucose levels efficiently. This increases the chance of negative outcomes on diabetic patients
and compromise quality of lives. Therefore, nurses need to visit homes of such patients and
ensure that they are taking care of themselves effectively and find out if they are facing any
issues or not (Brauer et al., 2015).