Describe what specific resources or federal agencies that you will utilize to remain informed and current in public health trends and practices

Sample Answer

Federal Agencies

One of the ways to keep a professional relevant and up-to-date is to remain informed. It is vital that a nurse stays informed for relevance, value addition, and keep with the pace of ever-evolving evidence-based practice. Even though several sources contain such information, nursing-related and federal agencies’ resources form part of the best sources.

Therefore, it is vital that a nurse understands the function of federal agencies to stay up-to-date with current healthcare practices and current health trends. One of the agencies that can be helpful in terms of resources is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s website contains a lot of health information that is not only useful to healthcare professionals but also patients (CDC, 2020).

Some of the useful information includes current immunizations, screenings, and education on most of the health conditions. Besides, CDC resources contain a database search where an individual can easily look for blogs, podcasts, and videos explaining what a healthcare professional could be looking for.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is another useful federal agency. It is the United States’ medical research center. The information housed at NIH is also important when it comes to current trends in research as it contains current medicine advances like innovation research strategies (Yeung et al., 2020).

• From NIH, an individual can quickly get links to medical research databases such as Medline and PubMed that are important for accessing research studies and articles. Another organization that contains relevant information is the American Association for Nurse Practitioners (AANP). From AANP, a nurse can easily get information such as policy trends and information and current job postings. Therefore, it is a valuable platform for nurses to connect with colleagues from other states and share vital nursing information, hence keeping updated.

  References

  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). National diabetes statistics report, 2020. Atlanta, GA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services, 12-15.

• Yeung, D. T., Bough, K. J., Harper, J. R., & Platoff, G. E. (2020, January). National Institutes of Health (NIH) Executive Meeting Summary Developing Medical Countermeasures to Rescue Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression (a Trans-Agency Scientific Meeting)—August 6/7, 2019. In Journal of Medical Toxicology (Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 87-105). Springer US.