Windshield survey entails an informal assessment in which a health practitioner(s) drive within and around a given area studying and recording their observations. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2015) t he investigation is critical in planning services for a given area of the community, such as gaps, especially towards services needed or those that may be essential to the community. The assessment is majorly undertaken from an automobile and offers a general visual impression of the communal needs. The survey is very critical within nursing as it helps nurses formulate and learn on the various trends affecting the health status of the community members. At the same time, Stanhope and Lancaster (2015) postulated that it allows nurses to get essential data and background setting of how to work, engage and provide needed services within the community. It is also a teaching strategy aimed at formulating community nursing results within a given area.
People Boundaries Location of Health Services Human-made environment Housing Social Systems
Individuals : Individuals stand a high chance of benefiting from home-made environments, for example, patient-centred nursing.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The community also stands to benefit from home-made environment Housing Social System, especially in formulating relevant policies towards their immediate healthcare needs.
Families are directly the first beneficiaries of home-made environment Housing Social Systems by way of receiving home tailored health services such as environmental health services. These services help families to stay per nurses recommendations.
Observations from the Windshield Survey
From the windshield survey, it is evident that the community are ignorant of critical aspects of their environmental health that is not checked and addressed is bound to result in a health disaster. In the first case, families are ignorant of the delicate basic needs of the elderly in the community. At the same time, the community have not taken a serious approach to address secondary side effects of public health concerns such as smoking, poor environmental hygiene and psychosocial aspects of their well-being. People have made a light-hearted approach towards health support programs available and initiated in the society to address their urgent, immediate concerns. The majority of the locals are ignorant of the healthcare services provided by various health care professions in their area. Analysis of personal data, on the other hand, revealed that a large percentage of the locals take their health issues lightly with the majority opting for over the counter drugs instead of seeking for full medical diagnosis.
From the above two identified needs, lack of the awareness of healthcare services offered by healthcare providers top the list and is most important. The community is losing much, especially towards benefiting from the majority of the health care services such as overall personal health assessment and diagnosis in addition to knowledge on individual health care needs. These, if harnessed by the community members, would go a long way in helping them prevent prevalent health concerns such as the continued rise of chronic infections.
Goals/Outcomes
The first critical objective towards the above two identified needs is to reach out to every member of the community to enable them to understand the importance of the healthcare services within their area. If and when appropriately harnessed the number of community members seeking for early diagnosis and healthcare needs within the area will no doubt increase from its present status. At the same time, the health status of the community members will also improve significantly with a large number of locals under care and treatment.
Reference
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing-e-book: Population-centered health care in the community . Elsevier Health Sciences.
