Role and Responsibilities of a Pediatric and a Child Health Nurse
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Assessment #1 – Assignment (Graded)
Assessment Task
Please note : There are extensions available for this assignment.
Please note: There are no re-submissions for this assignment
This assessment relates to the course topics 1 to 3 and asks you to write an essay on the provided Template and answer the following question.
“Discuss the role and responsibilities of a Pediatric and a Child Health Nurse. What role do these nurses play in keeping children safe?”
Objectives assessed
CO1. Explain the role of the Registered Nurse in family-centred care
CO4. Appraise strategies designed to prevent or minimise future health issues using a framework of health promotion, quality, safety and risk management
CO6. Apply knowledge of the cultural needs, rights and expectations of infants, children and young people and their families within a legal and ethical framework
Requirements for completing the assignment
1. You must support your answer by in text referencing and using appropriate resources from both the course and your own research. It is Harvard referencing.
2. The assignment length is 1000 words
3. The essay must include an Introduction, main body and conclusion
4. Research articles used must be 2006 and above.
5. Relevant Nurse competencies and mandatory frameworks must be included in your answer
6. A complete reference list will need to be attached to the end of your assessment template.
7. Submit your completed template and rubric sheet via Gradebook
SAMPLE ANSWER
Role and Responsibilities of a Pediatric and a Child Health Nurse
Pediatric and child health nurses are typically registered nurses providing their services to young people and children. The contribution of these nurses is tremendous in ensuring that children receive quality healthcare but continue to be instrumental in enhancing quality healthcare among children. The author delineates on the roles and responsibilities of pediatric and child health nurse in keeping children safe among other issues concerning their services.
Roles of pediatric and child health nurse vary from institution to another, but responsibilities remain similar. They are primary care givers as they provide preventive, curative, promotive, and rehabilitative care in all the levels of healthcare services that pertains to children. In health facilities, they provide care to sick children by comforting them, bathing, feeding, and ensuring their safety (Conard & Pape, 2014). They ensure that children are well treated for any ailments and provided with appropriate care. At the community level, the basic responsibilities of these registered nurses include assessing the health of the children, immunizing them, and ensuring that primary healthcare and referral services are provided.
Pediatrician nurses also play the roles of coordinators and collaborators. They must maintain good interpersonal interactions with the family, child, and health team members. Communication is very critical for nurses as it allows them to share with the parties concerned and in the process, improving the quality of services that they render. They also coordinate nursing care with other services to meet the needs of the children (Conard & Pape, 2014). For example, they coordinate with other parties in the sector such as social workers, physicians, dieticians, and physiotherapists to ensure that they render superb services to the children.
These nurses also play a role of an advocate. They advocate for the rights of the children and come up with strategies to render best care from the healthcare team (Conard & Pape, 2014). Another role of the pediatric and child health nurse is that of health educator. They have the responsibilities to teach the parents about the best strategies to prevent sickness, promote, and maintain health of their children. Information is a very critical aspect in ensuring improved services.
Nurses act as consultants in guiding parents on how to maintain and promote health of their children. For instance, they guide parents about the best-feed practices, best facilities to visit, and accident prevention among many others. They also counsel parents on health hazards and ensure that they can make appropriate decisions in different situations that they encounter (Gregorowski et al., 2013). They as well act as care managers whereby they monitor, organize, and evaluate patients’ treatment to ensure that the outcome is positive. They also participate in social services as they can refer children and families to other child welfare agencies to ensure that they get necessary support.
Another role of these nurses is carrying out research, which is a very important and integral part of the nursing profession. Research provides the basis for changes in the nursing practices; it improves the child health care, as well as improving the evaluation of such practice. Depending on the level of experience, these nurses may also play other roles and responsibilities such as carrying out physical examinations, immunization of children, screening of disease, diagnosing of sicknesses, and prescribing medication for the children (Gregorowski et al., 2013).
Nurses employ development strategies and frameworks to minimize or prevent future health issues. The most used framework many nurse embrace is of health promotion, quality, safety, and risk management. Health promotion encompasses three levels including primary, secondary, and tertiary level. These nurses aim to promote healthy maturation, intellectual, physical, and emotional bonding of children in the context of the family and community (Gregorowski et al., 2013). They as well provide care to those children in need and deal with disabilities. In primary level, they achieve this through education of children and parents and by providing basic needs and immunization to the children. At secondary levels, the role of these nurses is to provide care such as treatment to sick children. They, therefore, achieve this by assessing their needs, planning for the best care, implementing the plan, evaluating the condition of the child, and teaching the child and parent about healthcare. At the tertiary level, these nurses endeavor to ensure that children regain their normal health. They must as well ensure quality by adhering to the ethics when providing care such as prescribing the right medication and provide right immunizations to the children (Prospects, 2014). According to Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) (2008), nurses need to practice in a safe and competent manner, adhere to standards of professional and broader health system and ensure confidential of any personal information among others.
Safety is a very important role of the pediatric nurses. The safety of children in the health facility is a responsibility of the parent as well as of a pediatric nurse (Egerton, 2012). Risk management has become a very important factor and nurses need to know how to manage risks they are exposed to ensure that they do not compromise on their services.
Even as these nurses play their roles and responsibilities, they must consider cultural needs, rights, and expectation of the children, infants, young people, and families they come across within an ethical and legal framework. Cultures of parents do vary, and taking an initiative to understand their beliefs and values is important as it allows the nurse to align the services to suit the such needs (Egerton, 2012). The rights and expectations of the child or family members must as well be respected when rendering services. Law must also be adhered accordingly. The right to informed consent and end to life protocols must be respected when providing healthcare to the children. Ethics plays a key role in the nursing profession. Pediatric and child health nurses must respect and follow the codes of ethics in their service delivery. They must be honest, have integrity, be respectful, and endeavor to render services with diligence.
In conclusion, pediatric and child health nurses have a wide array of responsibilities and roles. I addition to promoting health among children, they also collaborate with parents and families to ensure that quality healthcare is rendered. It is therefore, prudent for the nurses to appreciate that situations keep on changing in their practice in terms of technological advancement, and they must always be on the look out to keep abreast with such changes.
Reference list
Conard, P, & Pape, T 2014, ‘Roles and Responsibilities Of the Nursing Scholar’, Pediatric Nursing, vol. 40 no. 2, pp. 87-90.
Egerton, L 2012, ‘Role of advanced paediatric nurse practitioners, Emergency Nurse. Vol. 20 no. 4, pp. 30-34.
Gregorowski, A., et al. 2013, ‘An action research study to explore the nature of the nurse consultant role in the care of children and young people’, Journal of Clinical Nursing, Vol. 22 no. 1/2, pp. 201-210.
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) (2008). National competency standards for the Registered Nurse. Retrieved from: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFYQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au%2F documents%2Fdefault.aspx%3Frecord%3DWD10%252F1353%26dbid%3DAP%26chks um%3DAc7KxRPDt289C5Bx%252Ff4q3Q%253D%253D&ei=ly7rU_DZEo_n7AbL4I CQDg&usg=AFQjCNF8F4L8vBEpHna0npODjOPPsDxbgg&sig2=35goFOyCC7eCM-qHPctwvQ&bvm=bv.72938740,d.ZGU
Prospects, 2014, ‘Pediatric nurse’. Available at: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/paediatric_nurse_job_description.htm
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