NSG 4029 Week 5 Discussion Describe your healthcare organization’s response to the pandemic or another emergency. Was the organization and staff prepared?

My healthcare organization has a department under emergency responses that is fully funded to deal with any emergency or pandemic that might arise, making it easy to manage pandemics and crises in the healthcare facility. A classic example is the COVID-19 Pandemic, which, despite having significant plans to address the pandemic, hurt the facility by causing many deaths and complications to patients and healthcare providers. 

Since coronavirus was declared a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the public health worldwide are tirelessly acting to contain the COVID-19 outbreak (Calgua, 2022). COVID-19 has become one of the biggest threats in human history. It has disrupted every aspect of everyday life and introduced new norms. The World Health Organization has given guidance and strategies to control the virus.

Most of the strategies apply to nurses who are there for front soldiers in the fight against coronavirus. Nurses play a significant role in disaster awareness and management. They also play a role in emergency response in many countries. For a government to successfully control a pandemic, it must train its nurses and equip them with the necessary tools to handle it. This must be fulfilled since care in disaster times is different from day-to-day nursing care, thus the need to have special needs. Nurses are considered the front-line soldiers in the fight against the pandemic. They can analyze and recommend the best cause of action.

Purposely to give practical and efficient care to affected patients. To reduce the risk of infection to patients, visitors and staff in a hospital, nurses need to rapidly identify infected patients and take them to emergency departments (McCombs & Williams, 2021). Nurses’ preparedness in controlling the coronavirus is also discussed in this paper. Also, the experience nurses have in disaster management. This includes the nursing care, work environment, feelings, willingness to respond and the training undertaken and its impact on them.

Describe the nursing leader’s role in the crisis.

Perhaps the most essential element of crisis leadership is transparent and trustworthy communication. Best practices for crisis communication, established through years of psychological and organizational research, include transparency, honesty and empathy. Communicating well starts with understanding your audience’s questions, talking to experts, and reviewing data to answer them accurately. Leaders then must develop and test messages to ensure they don’t confuse people. The role of nurses during emergency response can be categorized into sub-themes, which include the expectations of the public and hospital, assignments of the medical tasks, unique functions and willingness to respond to a disaster. Nurses are expected to know what they should do, what tasks are to be fulfilled and who is responsible for giving them directives. Studies show that nurses are the key players in emergency response.

NSG 4029 Week 5 Discussion

When a crisis hits, leaders should focus on managing their internal experience before providing direction to their teams and communities. The first role of nurses is to conduct surveillance in the field where they can give accurate projections of how the virus is spreading and how to stop it. Nurses should also dispense mass medication or vaccination in hospitals and shelters to the affected patients. Nurses undertake the role of medical practitioners in a way. This role falls outside their regular duties of nursing practices, their knowledge or abilities. Admitting patients in hospitals is also one of the roles they should take. The second role is identifying signs and symptoms and communicating effectively with the authorities on emerging issues. As WHO stated, the characteristics of COVID-19 can be confused with signs of ordinary flu; nurses must take to them to figure out which patient is affected and by what virus before admitting them dec, laying them a threat to the public (Sariolghalam, 2021). The third role is establishing disaster plans, coordinating the disaster response and providing care to affected victims. This role is mainly directed at supporting and maintaining the affected patients. For this to be carried out effectively, nurses must have undergone vigorous training in handling and caring for the affected victims. Though crises are almost by definition unexpected, influential leaders can and should still prepare for them.