The specifics of healthcare services, their quality, and delivery vary significantly depending on a state, its traditions, and quality of life. The significance of primary healthcare and the role of a community health nurse is defined by the levels of awareness and health education among general audiences. In Japan, the problems associated with the preparation of nurses and the promotion of cost-effective management of financial expenses affect the role of a community nurse significantly, increasing it and raising the significance of primary healthcare.
Primary healthcare is an indispensable element of healthcare services, implying the provision of basic healthcare assistance and raising the levels of health literacy among the target population to the required minimum. The notion of primary healthcare is traditionally seen as the endeavor to embrace the health-related needs of a community and its specific members by considering the impact of health determinants in a broader sense (Watari et al., 2018).
However, despite its advances in healthcare, Japan is presently facing numerous difficulties in providing primary care to its citizens, which means that the role thereof increases, yet the access o it is becoming gradually more restricted. Because of the increase in the number of aging people in Japan, as well as growing medical costs and issues associated with healthcare education, Japan has been experiencing difficulties in providing primary care to its citizens ().
Caused by the rise in obstacles to providing primary care to the citizens of Japan, the role of the subject matter has grown to become one of the main concerns on the agenda of Japanese healthcare. A nurse is expected to become the mediator between the healthcare system and a patient, allowing the latter to use the full extent of the opportunities and options that the system provides, including the crucial information, the key services, and the healthcare products. As a result, the public health levels are expected to increase.
Similarly, the importance of the role that a community health nurse plays in Japanese society has grown. Nurses are expected to arrange, manage, and use social capital in order to encourage a rise in the levels of health education, quality of service, and healthcare accessibility to citizens (Kanbara, Yamamoto, Sugishita, Nakasa, & Moriguchi, 2017). Thus the importance of the role that a community health nurse is expected to perform has grown in Japan. Presently, nurses are seen as mediators between patients and healthcare organizations, channeling the efforts of the latter into the management of public health issues (Kanbara et al., 2017). Therefore, the ability to perform the described tasks with high efficacy should be deemed as the key criteria for meeting the responsibilities of a community health nurse in Japan.
Locating whether nurses are capable of educating their communities about the public health issues to which the target demographic is especially vulnerable should be recognized as another important aspect of a community health nurse’s work that needs to be recognized. In the context of Japanese healthcare, it is critical for nurses to keep their community members aware of external threats since the present trends in the change of the Japanese demographic indicate that the percentage of aging people has been on the rise recently (Kanbara et al., 2017). Therefore, the role of nurses in the management of community health and especially the promotion of health literacy, provision of increased access to healthcare, and establishment of the nurse-patient dialogue, has grown.
References
Kanbara, S., Yamamoto, Y., Sugishita, T., Nakasa, T., & Moriguchi, I. (2017). The Japanese experience of evolving nurses’ roles in changing social contexts. International nursing review, 64(2), 181-186. Web.
Watari, T., Hirose, M., Midlöv, P., Okayama, M., Yoshikawa, H., Onigata, K., & Igawa, M. (2018). Japan can learn from the Swedish primary care doctor fostering system. Journal of General and Family Medicine, 19(5), 183-184. Web.