Public health nurses published in national journal

A group of public health nurses were recently published in the Journal of Nursing Leadership detailing the improvements to service delivery and building leadership for public health nurses made by the Vancouver Community (VC) Public Health.

The article highlights how a group of front line public health nurses, managers, educators and the clinical practice lead developed a model of service delivery while providing opportunity for front line PHNs to gain leadership skills.

The changes were made with the support of retired operations director, Barb Stackhouse, and current director of strategic deployment, Jennifer Vornbrock.

The outcome of the process, the ICY Service Delivery model, enhances the understanding of public health nursing as it articulates how (PHN interventions), where (homes, schools, clinics, on the phone etc) and with whom (individuals, communities and systems) public health nurses interact.

The document has been used within VCH to orient and mentor nurses, as well as create practice guidelines and resources. The model also gained attention when it was presented at the National Community Health Nurses Conference in 2012. The intervention language might be incorporated into the BC Perinatal Services PHN prenatal pathway standard currently being developed.

Copies of the full article are available through the VCH library. Congratulations to the VCH public health nurses and Dr Sabrina Wong on this recent article!