Public health nursing is a specialized nursing combining both nursing and public health principles with the primary focus of improving the health of the whole community rather than just an individual. Its documented history started in the 1800s and has evolved from home visiting to the varied settings that public health nurses find themselves working in as members of public health teams in clinics, schools, workplaces and government health departments.Public health nursing has been a critical component of the country’s health care system, uplifting of the health status of Malaysians and playing a dominant role in the fight against communicable diseases, and is set to face the challenges of the 21st century with public health nurses practising to the full capacity of their training in a restructured Malaysian health system – 1Care for 1Malaysia. The health sector reform allows for optimisation of scarce health care resources to deliver expansion of quality services based on needs, appropriateness, equity &allocative efficiency. The proposed model will be better than the current system, preserving the strengths of the current system but able to respond to increasing population health needs and expectations. There will be increased autonomy for healthcare providers with incentives in place for greater performance. Some of the implications of reform include allowing public- private integration, a slimmer Ministry of Health with a stronger governance role, enhancing the gatekeeping role of the primary care providers and the autonomous management of the public healthcare providers. In this restructured health system, the roles of the public health nurses are no less important than in the current one. In fact, with the increasing emphasis placed on prevention and primary care as the hub of community care with nurses as part of the primary care team delivering continuous comprehensive person-centered care,public health nurses in the future will be able to meet the challenge of refocusing on the true mission of public health: to look at the health problems of a community as a whole and work with the community in alleviating those problems by applying the nursing process to improve health, not just as providers of personal care only.
Public Health Nursing