Introduction

A special category of nurses are community health nurses (also referred to as community nurses, or public health nurses). Some skills and job requirements for community health nurses are the same as for registered nurses; however, the focus and scope of the work of community health nurses is different and relates first of all to the health status of the population and/or of the community(while registered nurses focus on the health of an individual). Community health nurses should consider health needs and risks of the whole population and health needs of the vulnerable categories of population. The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope of responsibility of community health nurses and to identify their role in health planning, health implementation and health evaluation.

Community health nurses

Modern society is experiencing a shift from location-based health care to population-focused and community-focused healthcare.. In this context, the community is regarded as patient instead of an individual. The scope of work of community health nurses includes monitoring health-related trends existing in the community, preventing public health issues, establishing priorities and goals for activities related to public health, helping the community to maintain health, to inform the public about the relevant health needs and activities, etc.

Community health nurses engage in health advocacy, establish health-related dialogue with community leaders and politicians, participate in educational and research programs devoted to community health issues . The major components of the activities of community health nurses are planning community health care, implementing the relevant activities and evaluating community health (Lundy & Janes, 2009). These aspects of work of community health nurses are considered in more detail in the next three sections.

Role of community health nurses in health planning

The first stage of community health planning is identification of vulnerable groups in the community and assessing health of the community in general and of these vulnerable groups in particular . Community health nurses should pay attention to different factors and characteristics of community health and collect social, physical and environmental data in order to get the full grasp of the problem. After the assessment, community health nurses should identify existing healthcare problems and establish priorities for addressing these problems.

The nurses should identify the level at which the intervention should take place – the whole community, local group, family or at the individual level (Allender, Rector & Warner, 2013). For example, in the case of rare occasions of a communicable disease the nurses should act at the individual level (or family level, if needed), and in order to prevent an outbreak of flu, community health nurses have to act at the highest community level. Furthermore, it is important to assign roles and responsibilities for all people and organizations involved in the campaign. At this stage, it is also recommended to identify the criteria and standards for assessing the outcomes of community healthcare actions.

Role of community health nurses in health implementation

The role of the community health nurse in the process of health implementation is to take the actions which were identified at the planning stage and belong to the scope of responsibilities of the community health nurse. Furthermore, community health nurses should integrate their actions with the actions of other stakeholders involved in managing community health, provide the relevant information to these stakeholders and coordinate the efforts of different parties 

At the implementation stage, there are numerous administrative responsibilities that should be carried on by community health nurses, such as supervising other staff, arranging the relevant services such as mass media, transportation, etc. Essentially, community health nurses can provide primary care to the members of the community, educate the patients and the citizens involved in the action, etc. Furthermore, community health nurses are responsible for keeping records of community health activities, maintaining the requirements of the state and reporting the results of health-related activities are also the responsibilities of community health nurse at the implementation stage. It should be noted that while community health nurses can provide direct care along with registered nurses, the former should focus on administering the implementation , managing it, establishing connection between all involved parties and supplying them with the necessary information.