Disaster in Frankly county

The role of the public health personnel and the public health RN in a disaster: The major role of the public health personnel in a disaster is to oversee safety in the community. There are many needs of the community during a time of crisis including meeting basic survival needs such as food, water and shelter. The public health personnel oversee the crisis from start to finish. Some of the public health personnel included the fire chief, emergency response and public works safety officer. The role of the public health RN is versatile. The RN wears many hats including being a member of the task force, collecting data and triaging imminent needs of the community members along with acting as a medical personnel to anyone in needs. An example the RN demonstrated was the gentleman in the disaster who expressed concerned with his blood pressure. The RN immediately took the blood pressure and directed the patient what to do next.
Chain of Command for Community Health Nurse:
The main commander was the Incident Commander, who happened to be the fire chief. The initial response to the emergency was very limited due to the massive damage the storm caused. Many of the qualified staff was absent. The next best thing was to delegate section chiefs based on skills/personalities. Each member of the team’s main role was to ensure safety among the community in one way or another. The community health nurse reported directly to the public health director.
Resources available to the Community Health Nurse to deal with situations outside the nurse’s scope of practice:
As stated previously, the there were several professionals with unique skills and knowledge. If there was a situation outside the nurse’s scope of practice, they were triaged to the appropriate “team” by the nurse. For example, in the town hall meeting the nurse was asked what could be done to prevent future flooding. This is clearly out of the nurse’s scope of practice so she delegated the question to be