Community health case study - Poverty: Nursing

Nurse Masasu works as a community health nurse at the health department and is assisting a rural school to address dental care among its students.

Nurse Masasu goes through the steps of the clinical judgment measurement model to make decisions by recognizing and analyzing cues, prioritizing hypotheses, generating solutions, taking action and evaluating outcomes.

First, nurse Masasu recognizes important cues including the results from a survey distributed to parents of students at the school.

The survey included questions about access to dental products such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss, access to routine dental services such as dental cleanings, financial ability to obtain products and access services and other barriers to maintaining their child's dental hygiene.

Additionally, the survey gathered demographic data including the number of individuals in each home, age of each family member, household income and living situation such as the type of dwelling or if they rent or own their home.

Next nurse Masasu analyzes these cues. He notes many parents particularly those from low income households reported difficulty accessing dental products and services due to financial constraints and lack of reliable transportation.

Several parents mentioned they cant afford dental insurance and feel embarrassed that they were unable to provide their child with access to routine dental care and were reluctant to discuss their needs due to the stigma associated with poverty.

Nurse Masasu knows poverty occurs when there are insufficient financial resources to meet an individual or family's basic living expenses, which includes medical services like dental care.

He also knows that income level affects health and that those living in poverty experience poorer health outcomes. Compared to those with higher incomes, Children are at particular risk since poverty can negatively impact their growth development.

And overall health. Nurse Masasu understands that there are many factors that affect health outcomes including being unable to access providers or clinics either due to financial constraints, lack of transportation or inconvenient clinic hours, increased stress and stigma.

On top of that, certain types of care such as dental care aren't always covered by employer provided health insurance plans especially for those working for lower wages.

Nurse Masasu recognizes that the parents need financial assistance in accessing dental care for their Children. Now using the information he's gathered.

Nurse Masasu chooses a priority hypothesis of financial insecurity. Then he generates solutions to address the parents' financial insecurity and he establishes the expected outcome that the students will have access to routine dental services within one year.

Then nurse Masasu takes action to implement these solutions. First, he notes the health department has a supply of toothbrushes and toothpaste that can be distributed to students free of charge.

He provides students with the supplies and instructs parents on how they can request additional supplies as needed. Through the health department.

Nurse Masasu also notes the neighboring town has implemented a free mobile dental clinic that provides dental care to its rural low income residents.

So he arranges to meet with the stakeholders of the clinic and identifies those willing to assist in expanding the mobile clinic to Masasu area.

Together, they identify what's needed to expand the clinic including staff resources and funds and they develop a plan for a proposal to request government funding and support.

Nurse Masasu also gathers letters of support for the clinic's expansion from parents and other community members. Nurse Masasu then drafts a proposal which explains the need for the expansion, identifies the stakeholders and outlines the goals of the clinic.

He makes sure to include the letters of support from the community and submits the proposal for review. One year later, nurse Masasu evaluates the outcomes of his actions.

He receives notification that his proposal to expand the dental clinic was denied. He understands that while students do have increased access to dental products through the health department, they still haven't been able to access routine dental services.

All right. As a quick recap, nurse Masasu recognized and analyzed cues related to the community's financial instability and prioritized hypotheses and generated solutions to address this problem.

Nurse Masasu then implemented interventions and evaluated the outcomes compared with the expected outcomes since the students were unable to access routine dental services within a year.

Nurse Masasu determined the plan of care was unsuccessful. He makes plans to request feedback on the proposal for revision and begins considering alternative approaches to provide affordable and accessible dental services to students in the rural school.