screenings and vaccinations

Discussion question this week: The CDC and Healthy People 2020 continue to educate on the importance, the improved ease of access and insurance coverage for screenings and vaccinations. It is the responsibility of nurses to engage our ageing adults in self-advocating for services that benefit the individual and community health. How can you, as a registered nurse, impact older adults to encourage routine vaccination? What impact does this have on the community as a whole?

Please respond to two student’s post with a 200 words each.

Student #1Stacy
Many illnesses have been prevented due to the incorporation of routine vaccinations and health screenings. Health screenings are provided to patients and communities to detect factors of health that have potential to impact one’s life such as blood pressure screenings. Blood pressure screenings are important indicators of a patient’s health. Hypertension is a leading cause of cardiac decline of a patient or population. Routine screening of blood pressure can help the patient and nurse to determine if the patient is experiencing increased blood pressures. The nurse and patient can work together on ways to decrease the blood pressure through education for lifestyle modifications, monitoring blood pressures and reporting blood pressure readings to the provider for review and or interventions as needed.
Yearly influenza vaccines are provided to communities, states, and the world, to slow the spread of the flu virus that has the potential to do great harm on vulnerable populations. Vulnerable populations are those with little to no immune systems such as infants and children, those that have comorbidities or disparities due to little or no access to healthcare. The ageing population can be seen as a vulnerable population as it does include numerous elderly patients that may have a harder time fighting off viruses due to weaker immune systems and or comorbidities such as diabetes or cancers.
As the world has seen with the global pandemic of Covid-19, the virus rocked all avenues of life and healthcare. The development of guidelines for social distancing and the manufacturing of vaccines to combat the virus and slow the spread have had a big impact on the survival rates as well as health of the communities. The importance that vaccines play is to introduce the host to a deflated virus in hopes that an immune response will start, and the body will make memory cells for immunity to combat the virus if encountered again. As nurses, it is important to educate our patients on routine screenings and vaccinations to promote optimal health in the patient populations. As with vaccinations, communities that have a high vaccination rate of certain vaccines such as Covid-19 vaccine, have a lower incidence in new cases of Covid-19 virus. Communities that are not well saturated with vaccination of Covid-19 are prone to seeing rises in active Covid-19 cases and hospitals can become overwhelmed therefore limiting the number of beds available or resources to care for those patients. Overall, the vaccination saturation of Covid-19 reduces the poor health outcomes such as need for hospitalization or deaths (Moghadas et al., 2021).
Reference
Moghadas, S. M., Vilches, T. N., Zhang, K., Wells, C. R., Shoukat, A., Singer, B. H., Meyers, L. A., Neuzil, K. M., Langley, J. M., Fitzpatrick, M. C., & Galvani, A. P. (2021). The impact of vaccination on COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States. Clin Infect Dis. https://pubmed.ncbi/mlm.hih.gov/33515252/
Student #2Leah
Children are not the only ones who are in need of vaccinations. Older adults and those with chronic health conditions are particularly at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases. Yet immunization coverage levels for U.S. adults are lo, leaving many vulnerable to illness, hospitalization, and deaths that could have been prevented. Bases on a 2014 survey, the Centers for Disease control and Prevention estimates that only 43 percent of adults ages 19 and older had received an annual influenza vaccine and 20 percent of adults ages 19 to 64 at high risk for serious pneumococcal disease had received the pneumococcal disease and 28 percent of adult 60 and older had received the zoster vaccine. These numbers may indicate low awareness and knowledge about vaccine-preventable diseases. What can nurses do to help adults get the vaccines they need and reduce the risk of severe illness? Nurses should take the lead by being up to date on all vaccines including the flu shot, to protect themselves, coworkers, patients, and families (Rittle & Francis, 2016). What are the opportunities to discuss vaccination for adults who are not current? With a nurse champion in the practice the management team can explore systemic changes and explore immunization for adults using several activities with proven effectiveness. Nurses are logical leaders for a multidisciplinary team that focuses on disease prevention, including immunization. They can champion the cause of immunizing adults and organize pre-visit planning activities to ensure that no vaccination opportunities are missed. Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs in medicine, saving thousands of lives and preventing millions of people from becoming ill. Unfortunately, vaccines for adults remain severely underutilized, nurses make a difference (Rittle & Francis, 2016). Nurses can make a big difference in the lives of many people by teaching and educating, providing information and making information available and relieving the anxiety and stress of the unknown when people worry about immunizations and preventative care. With the current state of the country and the pandemic nurses can do telecommunication and can teach patients via computer lecture or in small groups, any way to get the education to the patient is key to educate and to get the message out.
Reference
Ruth Francis and Chad Rittle (2016) The Ctritical Role Of Nurses in Promoting Immunization for Adults.
https://www.nursingald.com/articles

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