Public health is the science of protecting the safety of the community by preventing infections, prolonging the life of the patients. Nurses in public health are responsible for offering health care to a particular neighborhood. Public health nurses, commonly known as "community health nursing," focuses on population-centered care versus acute care of individuals in a hospital. Acute care is a healthcare environment consisting of protocols and standards of practice and safety that does not apply to some areas of health care delivery like outpatients. According to Paz, & West (2013) , patients receive short-term treatments for severe illness or injuries like diabetes, trauma, and chronic disease where services are offered by a team of a health care professional.
Similarities Between Public Health and Acute Care Healthcare
Public health and acute care are similar in that they all work towards improving the lives of patients by preventing and treating diseases. Nursing in acute care focuses more on healing, promoting, and maintaining health if an individual. Patients who visit the acute care setting are usually sick and require medical intervention to heal ( Paz, & West 2013) . The professionals provide the right medication to the patient and also prevent the occurrence of other diseases through maintaining good health. Taking the case of elderly suffering from diabetes, the nurses take time on the individual. Similarly, to public health, which focuses on preventing the occurrence of infection by offering the best treating and health care promotions, acute care also offers individually-oriented diagnostic and cure aimed at improving health.
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Differences
Public health care is different from acute care, beginning from the setting to the nature of care provided to the patients. Public health focuses primarily on prevention of diseases and injuries through promotion health that focuses on education and creation of awareness. On the other hand, acute care focuses on offering quick treatment to severe illness like chronic diseases and injuries like burns Hirshon et al., (2013). Another difference is on the population involved in care. Public health care focuses on the need of the entire community by providing a solution to prevent illness and offer healthier lifestyles to community members. Acute care focuses on an individual patient by providing treatment and helping get better,
Public Health Advantages and Disadvantages
Public of community health is offers a range of advantages, starting with its ability to track diseases and prevent transmission in the community. After tracking illness, public health nurses set standards that are prevalent in the areas since they have studied and gathered adequate information about the disease and the community. The top most advantage of public health nursing is that it offers sufficient education and awareness on ways of preventing diseases or illness. Another advantage of public health is that it is free and easily accessible by everyone in the community.
The major disadvantage of public health is its inability to treat emergencies on time due to the inadequate resource. The lives of patients requiring emergency treatment get endangered since public health nurses do not have resources to handle such emergencies. Another disadvantage of public health care is a slow response to treatment hence increasing cases of complication and health risks of patients.
Acute Care Healthcare Advantages and Disadvantages
Acute health care is beneficial since it focuses on immediate health problems. The immediate response involves a redistribution of essential resources that will be adequate in minimizing impeding danger. According to Hirshon et al. (2013), quick response to health issues in the acute care setting helps in dealing with emergency cases. For instance, it is easy to manage emergency like a stroke when the patients are in the acute care setting since all the resources are readily available.
The major drawback of acute care is the cost of health services provided. Acute care is expensive hence not affordable to low-class families. Patients in critical care pay a lot of money during the treatment and post-acute care, which takes at least one month.
Those Benefiting from Public Health
Public health care benefits the entire society irrespective age, gender, or social class. Due to an increase in health issue worldwide, public health plays a crucial role in educating the whole nation on emerging health issues and providing information on the prevention care. The government and policymakers also benefit from public health as they get adequate information regarding a health issue and pass policies to prevent the spread of illness and also provide medication. For instance, the government uses the information gathered to develop cancer clinics across the world and also put policies that burn foods and material that contribute to cancer. Expectant and lactating mothers are another beneficiary group of public health since they acquire education on care practices to observe for themselves and their children like immunization. Elderly in society and their families are the other beneficiaries of public health.
Those Benefiting from Acute Care Health Care
The elderly group is one group that benefits from acute care health care. Most elderly require intensive care, which is available from acute care health care as it helps in cure most illness that is associated with old age like diabetes. Another group that benefits from acute care is patient with chronic diseases who require intensive care and treatment ( World Health Organization. 2013). Acute care is beneficial to patients who have severe injuries like body burns, broken spinal cords, and others.
Conclusion
In conclusion, public health care and acute care are health cares that aim towards improving the health of individuals. Public health care focus on preventing infections, prolonging the life of the patients, and promoting community health. Acute care focuses more on providing treatment to the individual through a team of professionals. Two-Health care is beneficial to the entire society since they focus on improving health and providing a solution to health issues.
References
Hirshon, J. M., Risko, N., Calvello, E. J., Ramirez, S. S. D., Narayan, M., Theodosis, C., & O'Neill, J. (2013). Health systems and services: the role of acute care. Bulletin of the World Health Organization , 91 , 386-388.
Paz, J. C., & West, M. P. (2013). Acute Care Handbook for Physical Therapists-E-Book . Elsevier Health Sciences.
World Health Organization. (2013). Health systems and services: the role of acute care. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/5/12-112664/en/.
