Objective 1: Philosophy of Care Guiding Nursing Practice
Liberal arts play a crucial role in nursing education. According to Kooken and Kerr (2018), liberal arts and sciences are essential to nursing education since they facilitate building abilities or characteristics such as critical thinking, holistic care, and creativity. Although, over the past decade, liberal sciences have overtaken liberal arts, nursing education still includes liberal arts due to its essential contribution. Some of the core liberal arts relevant in nursing education include religion, history, and philosophy. Kooken and Kerr (2018) divulge that liberal arts prove crucial in improving nursing skills, particularly facets such as effective communication, decision-making, navigating diversity, and the improvement of self during nursing practice. Therefore, the purposeful inclusion of liberal arts such as Christianity has proved crucial.
When caring for patients, nurses must adopt a patient-centered approach to care. Today’s nursing practice considers patient outcomes and satisfaction as hallmarks. Due to this, liberal arts such as Christianity play a crucial role in considering the psychosocial and spiritual concerns that the patients may have. These factors prove helpful in avoiding various patient concerns, thereby denoting the role of Christianity in nursing care (Kooken & Kerr, 2018). Rieg et al. (2018) also provide an evaluation of Christianity in nursing education and practice. The paper notes that individuals who believe in divinity are more likely to be better nurses because of their level of devotion and care (Rieg et al., 2018, p.168). The statement emphasizes the need to consider patients’ psychosocial and spiritual beliefs during nursing care.
Caring, compassion and the call to love God and serve others are emphasized throughout Judeo-Christian Scriptures. One early example of nurses caring for others is found in Exodus:2, when midwives would not kill infant boys because they feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. Galatians 5:14 commands followers to love their neighbors. The Bible insists on love as the greatest commandment because it is easy to care for a beloved. The apostle Paul defined charity, or love, the English form of Caritas, as “reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God’s love for and in us” (1 Corinthians 13:1, AMP)” (Rieg et al., 2018, p.1).
The psychological and spiritual needs may often act as patients’ coping mechanisms depending on their stress level or distress during healthcare delivery. Due to this, nurses must ensure that their patients’ religious and spiritual needs are met during health care delivery. Therefore, liberal art such as Christianity helps nurse practitioners to assess the religious and spiritual needs of patients and integrate them into their plan of care. For instance, a devout Christian who believes that her dietary plan should not contain foods such as pork should be considered in the patient’s diet to avoid a lack thereof patient satisfaction. Rieg et al. (2018) also reveal that Christianity necessitates nurses to be caring, compassionate, and serve others according to the scripture. It also emphasizes the need to serve others with the same respect as one would serve oneself through the scripture. The emphasis promotes nurses to have characteristics such as compassion, love, and respect for human dignity.
Objective 2: Organizational, Leadership, and Management Concepts
The application of organizational, leadership, and management concepts is also crucial in nursing care to provide high-quality services in the profession. Nurses have proved to be crucial in health care. They work alongside various health care practitioners, from physicians to psychologists, surgeons, and patients. Due to this, nurses must apply organizational, managerial, and leadership concepts to their practice to ascertain the delivery of high-quality nursing care (Burger et al., 2010). For instance, unlike management, leadership is a broad concept. However, leadership and management are both organizational concepts that focus on achieving organizational objectives and goals. On the one hand, managers are expected to apply managerial concepts while being leaders (Weiss et al., 2019). On the other hand, leadership occurs when a nurse attempts to influence the behavior of various stakeholders within an organization. Leadership concepts may be applied to facilitate individual or organizational goals and objectives (Weiss et al., 2019). An effective leader will influence others to follow by making them see the shared vision. Unlike management, leadership may be linked with influence.
For a nurse to be deemed a leader, he or she must develop various competencies. The first competency is the ability to effectively diagnose a patient or otherwise understand the patient’s condition and the processes that may otherwise influence the condition (Weiss et al., 2019). A nurse must also adapt to various organizational levels since nurses work alongside various health care professionals. Besides that, nurse leaders must have effective communication skills. These three competencies are crucial in facilitating high-quality nursing care. The adds that effective nurse leaders often engage with other health care professionals and collaborate with them in the pursuit of a shared goal, high patient outcome, practitioner outcome, and quality health care delivery.
Organizational concepts and leadership are critical in the promotion of high-quality nursing care. Nurses must demonstrate effective leadership and managerial skills necessitated to facilitate critical and ethical decision-making processes. These skills are also relevant in developing and maintaining work relationships considering that effective nurses often collaborate with other health care practitioners. Managerial concepts are only necessary among nurse managers. Experienced nurses often have years of experience and are thus given managerial positions to manage other nurses. However, each nurse must have basic leadership skills such as knowledge of policies and regulatory guidelines, awareness of the complex systems within health care facilities, and the ability to thrive in the ever-changing medical environment. Therefore, effective nurses must be creative, innovative, and have efficient communication skills to thrive in clinical environments while delivering the highest quality of health care. In addition to this, Walker-Reed (2016) notes that leadership and management also entail clinical coaching. Clinical coaching is crucial since it aims at fostering professional and supportive relationships, thus improving patient outcomes.
As members of the health care team, nurse graduates must understand and use the organizational, leadership, and management concepts taught to them. These are also inclusive of processes and measures used in health care. Besides that, graduates will be expected to initiate basic investigations pertaining to health care safety and quality while assisting in developing action plans to promote quality improvement. Nursing graduates must also assist in monitoring the implemented action plans incorporated within a larger health care system. According to Dahlke et al. (2019), nurses must protect patients from the risk of harm by ascertaining system effectiveness and high individual performance. Therefore, organizational, leadership, and managerial concepts must consider this to ascertain high-quality service delivery.
Objective 3: Patient-Centred Care
In the current practice, the professional nursing profession is founded on the use of contemporary evidence-based practices. Therefore, nursing education uses this very foundation to educate future nurses to become competent health care practitioners in the workplace. Nursing education encompasses the identification of practice or medical issues, integrating evidence-based research and practices, and evaluating outcomes. Nursing practitioners are crucial in health care since they are strategically positioned to monitor practitioner outcomes and patient outcomes and identify the existence of any medical or practice issues. Notably, health care has been the core of societies globally.
Over the past decades, health care practitioners have developed various medical practices and processes used to treat similar illnesses or conditions. However, some of the practices and processes have proved more effective than others, thereby necessitating evidence-based practice. Therefore, evidence-based practice in nursing is one of the most vital factors in the health care system (Mantzoukas, 2008; Horntvedt et al., 2018). It denotes the amalgamation of clinical expertise with research evidence and depends on the assigned patients’ preference. In retrospect, evidence-based practice is a problem-solving approach within the healthcare system that promotes nurses’ individualized care for patients. Evidence-based practice in nursing involves various stages, from identifying a problem, gathering the best evidence, analysis of the evidence, applying the data to clinical practice, and assessing the assessment of results. Thus, evidence-based practice in nursing helps nurses make informed decisions by using updated or contemporary protocols used to improve patient care (Traynor et al., 2010).
Health care models that incorporate evidence-based practice employ systematic processes that evaluate and apply scientific evidence within specific practice issues. One of the primary evidence-based approaches is referred to as PICO denoting Patient or Problem (P), Intervention (I), Comparison (C), and Outcome (O) (University of Montessori Libraries, 2020; UTHSC, 2020). One example of a PICO question is: Among patients considered critically ill, how effective are the tube feeding approaches, particularly between Post-Pyloric Tube Feeding and Gastric Tube Feeding, in inhibiting ventilator-associated pneumonia? In this question, P denotes critically ill patients, I- Post-Pyloric Tube Feeding, C- Gastric Tube Feeding, and O- the inhibition of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia. PCO is particularly crucial in evidence-based practice and patient-centered care since it considers individual patient conditions when evaluating the best health care practice.
Consequently, patient-centered care in nursing practice considers patient preferences. However, patient preferences cannot be determined without having extensive knowledge of patient values, needs, and diversity. It is also crucial to consider the needs of the patients’ families since their needs may reflect the best interest of the patient. However, these facets cannot be facilitated devoid of nurse-patient communication. According to Alshammari et al. (2019), effective nurse-patient communication is crucial since it improves service delivery and thus the quality of nursing care. Communication is also crucial in educating patients and their families by giving them a basic understanding of the patients’ condition and recommended treatment processes. During the communication processes, nurses must integrate reliable, evidence-based practices and make sound clinical judgments. They must also collaborate with other health care providers or the health care team of a given patient to facilitate better patient outcomes. Nurses must also consider ethical and legal factors during evidence-based, patient-centered health care delivery.
Objective 4: Relevant Technology Enhancing Nursing Care
Over the years, technology has played an important role in the healthcare industry. Its application in health care has proved useful since it supports healthcare delivery by improving its capability and health efficiency. The right technology or technological application may prove helpful in facilitating increased efficacy, reduced input and costs, and improved quality of health care delivery. Krick et al. (2019) assert that the nursing profession needs to incorporate technology to improve service delivery (p.2). Therefore, research on technology, particularly digital technology, reveals that they are useful in nursing practice since it improves the quality of nursing care while increasing patient outcomes.
One application of technology in nursing practice is the facilitation of effective communication, thereby promoting safe and high-quality patient outcomes. In most cases, healthcare delivery encompasses numerous medical journeys and multiple healthcare practitioners. While this is necessary to facilitate positive patient outcomes, it increases the prevalence of miscommunication or medical errors. Nurses must avoid communication errors since they may negatively influence patient safety. Therefore, nurses must employ Electronic Health Records to avoid this. However, the application of technology in nursing care necessitates the adherence and application of various policies and mandates. For instance, nurses must consider patient safety, privacy, and confidentiality when using healthcare technology.
Ensuring the safety, privacy, and confidentiality of patients and their patient information is vital. Confidentiality, privacy, and security are three terms that are often used interchangeably within the health care industry (Hebda et al., 2019). Today, health care practitioners are expected to facilitate the confidentiality, privacy, and security of all patient information in addition to ensuring that they deliver quality health care services. In the United States, different principles guide data integrity and ethical rules and regulations that guide the facilitation of confidentiality, privacy, and security. For instance, two primary Acts guide health care professionals in ensuring the facilitation of patient privacy, confidentiality, and security; the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act). In most cases, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is considered when ensuring the privacy of a patient’s health information.
On the other hand, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act often contains principles that guide and support patient safety and the delivery of quality and evidence-based services and protocols (McBride, 2018). The study reveals that HITECH Act proves vital in providing principles such as Clinical Decision Support (CDS) specifically designed to ensure data integrity and ethics by informing health care providers on the right information and processes to take. Therefore, nurses must adhere to these regulations when using technologies such as Electronic Health Records in nursing practice. When this is facilitated, the Electronic Health Records will prove instrumental in storing patient information, thereby avoiding the risk of miscommunication that may negatively affect the quality of service delivery, patient safety, and privacy.
Objective 5: Effective Critical Thinking, Communication, Assessment, and Technical Skills in Nursing
Critical thinking is a crucial facet of nursing care. In nursing education, students are taught to be critical thinkers since patients’ health and well-being would rely on their expertise. According to Papathanasiou et al. (2014), nurses apply critical thinking as a process used in decision-making and problem-solving. The study divulges that critical thinking is essential for the delivery of effective and safe health care. Papathanasiou et al. (2014) state that “Critical thinking is defined as the mental process of actively and skillfully perception, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of collected information through observation, experience, and communication, leading to a decision for action” (p.283). Nursing educators know that students may face an array of difficulties and challenges in their clinical practice. Therefore, they educate students on various critical thinking skills that nursing students must incorporate throughout their educational processes and apply in nursing practice.
Nurses must know the various factors crucial for the enhancement of critical thinking. For instance, to develop critical thinking skills, nursing students must reveal the independence of their thought processes and portray fairness, integrity, perseverance, and humility. Besides that, nursing students must also have a high level of curiosity (Papathanasiou et al., 2014). Curiosity helps in promoting strive for knowledge and learning new ideas and processes, thereby enhancing critical thinking. Therefore, critical thinking in nursing practice is fundamental for the delivery of safe, skillful, high-quality, and efficient nursing care.
Some of the core critical thinking skills relevant in nursing practice include cognitive skills, problem-solving skills, and assessment or analytical skills. These skills are crucial in facilitating the credibility of sources and recognizing various facets that may otherwise go unnoticed (Hoffman et al., 2009; Papathanasiou et al., 2014). One of the applicable methods crucial for critical thinking and assessment skills is the Socratic Method. The method facilitates the investigation, examination, and recognition of conditions beyond simple beliefs.
Communication and technical skills are also fundamental in nursing practice. One of the most crucial communication skills is interprofessional communication. Nurses must effectively communicate and collaborate with other health care professionals since it facilitates the provision of patient-centered and evidence-based care. Therefore, there must be an emphasis on effective communication and interprofessional communication in nursing practice. Besides this, interprofessional communication is fundamental in nursing practice since nurses often interact with various health care practitioners from different fields. Nurses act as a bridge between other healthcare professionals and patients, thereby necessitating interprofessional communication. Besides this, nurse-patient communication is also vital to ensure positive patient outcomes.
Nurses must effectively collaborate with patients and their families as part of the professional nursing practice. Thus, collaboration is another essential communication skill that should be facilitated between nurses and other health care practitioners and between nurses and patients. In addition to this, Laari and Dube (2017) note the importance of technical skills in nursing. Technical skills denote the ability to use various technologies within nursing care. Over the past decade, technology has become a central part of health care, thereby necessitating nurses to have extensive knowledge of various technologies and an array of technical skills.
Objective 6: Safe Application of Pathophysiological, Medical, and Nursing Management of Acute and Chronic Illnesses
Patient-centered care has been the hallmark of health care delivery in today’s society. It denotes the provision of care that is respectful of patient preferences, values, and needs while ensuring that they guide all health care decisions during nursing care. Designing an elaborate health promotion plan can reduce the risks of diseases. Changing the nursing profession from care-driven to focusing on patient-centered efforts to manage conditions or diseases will improve positive outcomes. An involved patient is more likely to stick to a treatment plan compared to one receiving instructions. The approach introduces a contemporary model where patients and health care providers are partners in facilitating the best clinical outcomes and increased patient satisfaction. The patient-centered care model allows nurses to develop individualized and integrated health care plans that suit patients’ medical, psychological, spiritual, and social needs. Ortiz (2018) supports this by stating that the nursing practice should change the policies and regulations to focus on patient-centered practice (p.291). The article reveals that patient-centered care in nursing has had increased scholarly attention due to the unique approach it adopts. Besides that, it proves helpful in nursing practice since nurses can develop or otherwise integrate evidence-based and patient-centered policies, thereby providing them with unique knowledge and skills.
Nurses play an essential role in ensuring that there is patient safety during the delivery of any form of health care. Although physicians are responsible for various decisions such as treatment and diagnostic decisions, they spend limited time with patients. Unlike physicians, nurses spend the most time with patients through all the critical processes. Therefore, they have the capacity and ability to note or otherwise evaluate the different processes and healthcare practices applied to patients throughout their time in healthcare facilities. Therefore, this proves that nurses are uniquely suited for ensuring a safe application of medical, nursing, and pathophysiological management, particularly in critically ill patients, to promote health and eliminate hazards to diseases.
The constant presence of nurses and regular interaction with patients, family members, and other health care practitioners is crucial in coordinating the patient’s condition. Nurses are strategically placed to note whether the patient’s condition is improving. In other words, nurses are the first respondents to a patient’s concern. In cases where there is any form of deterioration, nurses are often the first health care practitioners to note it, thus communicating the information with the health care team, patients, and their families. Thus, from the perspective of patient care, the main role of nurses during the patient-centered health care delivery is to monitor patients and note any form of clinical deterioration, detect any form of error or miscommunication, and identify various changes in the patients’ condition.
Consequently, various factors may otherwise affect patient safety. For instance, nurses must note that vigilance or the lack thereof may affect or otherwise influence patient safety. According to Pelissier et al. (2020), vigilance among nurses is crucial since it defines their ability to ensure patient safety. Therefore, factors such as the assignment of numerous patients to one nurse may affect nurses’ vigilance. Each nurse should care for an optimum number of patients without straining responsibilities. Nevertheless, nurses must recognize that clinical environments are often hectic, thereby necessitating vigilance despite the various factors limiting nurses. Developing competency and skills will promote effective care practices among nurses.
Objective 7: Assessment Data Clinical Interventions
Evaluation and diagnosis are critical aspects of clinical medicine. Performing proper steps in the two processes will guarantee reliable interventions in individuals. A proficient or experienced nurse asks the right questions and collects relevant assessment data, which will help in deducing the correct diagnosis. Critical thinking as competency in nursing guides skilled observation processes, data verification, and identifying irrelevant questions about the signs and symptoms. Accurate clinical judgment is achieved through patient knowledge, clinical experience, knowledge, epidemiology, and logical reasoning. Notably, there is no defined evaluation and diagnosis procedure. Every patient and condition is unique and will need patient-specific assessment to design an impactful intervention. Notably, new graduate nurses might not possess the needed critical thinking or logical reasoning to collect accurate assessment data. Therefore, proficient nurses are highly likely to ask the correct questions and use accurate, logical reasoning and critical thinking.
Providing reliable support for clinical decisions is an important aspect of the current medical practice. Assessment data should be backed by reliable research and evidence to reduce medical errors. Before, nurses and healthcare providers relied on experience, critical thinking, and assessment data alone to provide competent care. However, evidence-based practice has become increasingly important to reduce medical mistakes in the profession. More investigations are validating the importance of accurate clinical judgment in the profession. Communication, assessment, diagnosis, and decision-making are the main components in providing competent clinical judgment. Flawless communication in the profession will ensure the transfer of information on best practices. A medical system with big data will provide the nurses with instant, reliable knowledge during data assessment. Access to medical data will professionalize and optimize results in clinical judgment. As a result, reliable assessment data improve individual patient outcomes and, by extension, the whole population.
Clinical epidemiology is an integral part of modern medical practice. Nurses are required to incorporate quantitative data and sound evidence in their clinical judgment. Therefore, data systems that can be accessed by every medical practitioner have become part of the profession. However, extra effort is needed to enter accurate primary data into the big data system guiding the medical profession. Notably, clinical interventions or decisions are often guided by a complex process that considers the entirety of the the evidence. Has this condition or illness presented itself before? How did the healthcare providers handle it? Which is the best practice for managing the condition or illness? These these are some of the questions that guide nurses in considering the entirety of the evidence. However, it is important to note that clinical data can oversimplify clinical judgment without considering other complexities in the medical profession. Data is only useful in guiding “ideal clinical” reasoning but presents significant drawbacks. Therefore, it is critical for nurses to recognize the limitations of accessing medical data in guiding diagnosis and assessment.
Objective 8: Policies, Rules, and Regulations Guiding the Nursing Practice
Professional nursing practice standards in the US are developed by the American Nurses Association (ANA). The rules provide a definition of ideal competent care in the nursing practice. The law provides an acceptable level of service standards that should be achieved by every competent and reasonable nurse. The rules as defined by ANA consist of defined competencies on diagnosis, Intervention, and evaluation. The second component is standards in consultation, direct care, and quality assurance. The last component is on specific guidelines on special groups of persons or populations. The main purpose of these guidelines is to maintain high levels of safety and standards in the nursing practice. Furthermore, the standard guidelines help in the development of competencies that steer the profession.
The nursing profession impacts the quality of healthcare delivery, patient outcomes, and patient safety in any community. Providing strict rules and regulations is necessary to maintain high healthcare standards. Nursing practice in the United States is regulated at the state level. Each state formulates laws and civil procedures as per its healthcare requirements and populations. Therefore, specific states have separate licensing requirements for Nurses. States use licensing procedures to validate competency and knowledge in the profession. Nursing boards and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing are the bodies that regulate and ensure consistency and uniformity of the nursing practice in each state. Furthermore, several federal government agencies also issue guidelines that assure patient safety through the department of Health and Human Services. Therefore, the nursing profession is heavily regulated by the state and federal governments to maintain high public safety standards.
Individuals in the nursing practice and correctional health systems must comply with state and federal rules and regulations. Health care facilities must provide acceptable nursing standards to the patients. Furthermore, there are several non-governmental organizations, such as National Commission on Correctional Health Care’s Standards, which useful issue guidelines in the nursing profession. Additionally, healthcare facilities also provide policies and procedures that must be respected by nurses in the specific institution. However, state and federal regulations must be incorporated into the institution’s policies. Therefore, every registered nurse must understand and comply with the required standards of practice as provided for by the institution, state, and federal government.
Environmental determinants of health have a significant effect on evaluation assessment and diagnosis. In certain incidences, the cause of a symptom is not because of an illness but a result of negative environmental factors. Many individuals in the healthcare profession do not deny the impact of environmental factors on public health, yet it is often overlooked during patient assessment. Neglecting environmental determinants provides an opportunity to miss Prevention and Intervention. Notably, not every sickness is due to an environmental hazard; however, every individual is exposed to such perils regularly. Therefore, not only should a nurse have the competency to identify environmental hazards contributing to the current diagnosis, but they should also be able to identify initiatives to prevent potential environmental perils. Proactive preventive measures can limit the effect of environmental determinants in healthcare.
Objective 9: Healthcare Management to Maximize Independence
Patient-centered care has become a huge part of promoting health independence and quality of life. Patients in charge of their healthcare take more proactive measures in adhering to treatment plans which generate improved quality of life. The section will discuss five steps on how to train a patient to be independent and responsible for their health and quality of life.
Emphasizing on Partnership
In previous years, patients and nurses have had a relationship similar to ‘student-teacher’ interactions. Nurses were giving instructions, and patients would follow those outlines without questions. The current healthcare plans emphasize working with the patient to develop a collaborative approach to treatment and care plans. Therefore, a partnership type of relationship bears better results than the previous ‘following instruction’ model. Notably, it is critical for the healthcare professional to explain to the patient the benefits of the partnership model.
Motivational Interviewing
Triggering a patient to make the right steps and change a destructive mindset is the first step to health independence. A series of open-ended questions will help a patient realize a productive way of leaving. The exercise will reveal the patient’s fears and concerns to the nurse, which will consequently lead to offering support and encouragement. The outcomes of such interviews should be shared by other professionals included in the care plan. The seven aspects of DARN CAT mnemonic guide a reliable motivational interviewing. Provoking a patient’s desire, ability, reasons, need, commitment, activation, and action will help the patient have a holistic perspective of the the care plan.
Providing Useful Information
This aspect does not apply to every patient because some are enthusiastic about learning about their ailment while others lack interest. Individuals with the zeal to learn about their condition or ailment, it is important to provide information in any medium available. Publications, brochures, links to articles, and videos can be a good sources of learning. Providing the right information will help the patient differentiate reliable content from health conspiracies available on the internet.
Simplify the Process
It is important to realize that patients do not possess medical training. Therefore, medical jargon and complicated care plans should be minimized by offering simplified explanations for every procedure. Additionally, patients should be guided to provide realistic goals. Often, patients are inclined to offer unachievable plans to please the healthcare expert. Goals should follow the SMART guidelines. For instance, an overweight individual should design a walking plan before incorporating long-distance runs into their physical exercise routine.
Identifying and Addressing Barriers
Patients come from separate cultural and family backgrounds. The history of a patient will reveal the physical or psychological barriers to the nurse. For instance, some cultures promote natural ways of treatment. Therefore, without understanding the cultural aspect, a healthcare professional might be forcing an unwelcomed idea on the individual. Psychological and physical barriers should be addressed before a patient begins participating in a healthcare plan.
Promoting independence in patients reduces setbacks in healthcare plans. Some patients are discharged from facilities but still need a plan of care for a particular period or for the duration of their lives. Nurses are unable to be involved with such patients every minute of their lives. Therefore, patient-centered care plans will make patients make healthy contributions to their health recovery.
Objective 10: Health-Related Education
The future of nursing is evolving from care to promoting wellness. An individual who is emotionally, physically, and spiritually healthy will eliminate the most causes of illnesses. Many professionals are advocating for nurses to embrace wellness in their daily practice. Institute of Medicine (IOM) has instituted a paradigm shift by envisioning the nursing profession promoting disease prevention and wellness. “The future of nursing report” by the IOM seeks to change the perception that nurses’ role is health promotion and prevention. Notably, the words and phrases “health”, “wellness,” and “health promotion” are used interchangeably in the nursing practice. The pioneers of wellness note a difference in the use of these words. However, the term wellness has no clear definition making it a challenge to develop an internationally recognized concept of wellness. Nurses tend to promote wellness in their own understanding without having a clear guideline.
Although there is no universally accepted definition of wellness guiding the nursing profession, understanding the known explanations can provide a professional direction on the subject. Some experts define wellness as an ever-changing process in an individual’s life. Wellness continuously changes depending on circumstances. An individual will provide a different definition of wellness depending on the current situation. Therefore, according to this definition, achieving ideal wellness does not end but continuously changes in an individual’s lifetime. Alternatively, others define wellness from a realist perspective. In this definition, individuals’ realities are unique based on genetics, environment, and experiences. Lastly, some believe that wellness can be determined through empirical research. The explanation dictates that patients’ history can determine their wellness. This definition rotates back to the personalized definition of wellness for each patient.
The three above-mentioned explanation proves that designing a reliable wellness concept can be complex and impossible. The intricate nature of the explanation explains why the concept is omitted in the nursing profession. However, the National Wellness Institute (NWI) defines wellness as “a multidimensional and holistic state of being that is conscious, self-directed, and constantly evolving to achieve one’s full potential”. Therefore, the multidimensional concept of wellness is unique to every patient, even to NWI. It is impossible for nurses to master each patient’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual history and then formulate an impactful wellness plan.
The future of nursing is anchored on constantly making changes in health care delivery to promote positive health outcomes in society. Nurses continuously make the necessary changes and embrace the latest best care practices that positively impact public health. Promoting wellness through education programs that prioritize the impact of wellness in society will promote optimal wellness. It is challenging to determine the ideal wellness program for each patient but enlightening them will help them embrace the idea. Additionally, nursing research and administration will help in developing evidence-based wellness guidelines. A detailed promotion practice will reinforce the value of wellness to patients and nurses.
Objective 11: Quality and Safety of Healthcare Systems
Data on quality healthcare can help to improve healthcare outcomes. The figures can be used to assist in external reporting and internal quality improvements. The spirit of continuous improvement in healthcare organizations makes it necessary to collect, analyze data, and design healthcare models that will have a positive impact on health outcomes. Additionally, data can be used by managing boards to monitor results and for accountability purposes. For instance, the data can be used to rate healthcare facilities according to the level influencing the amount of funding and sanction. Facilities struggle to maintain low outcome measures, which will, in turn, increase levels of quality healthcare.
Data monitor mortality, the safety of care, readmissions, effectiveness, efficient use of medical imaging, patient experience, and tieless of care are the aspects measured to monitor patient outcomes. These outcomes are set and prone to changes by national organizations. The outcomes are designed to capture all the aspects of state and federal government requirements for quality healthcare. Although targets are set by the national government, healthcare facilities or specific states can set more intense targets to monitor the quality of care. Notably, achieving and surpassing national targets not only improve the quality of care but also influence the level of funding and contracting efforts. It is important to note that the accreditation process takes into account context. For instance, the size of the hospital should be considered when analyzing figures from a small hospital with a 10-bed capacity. When two patients pass on, the facility will have a high percentage in mortality rate.
The standards in measuring health care performance outcomes must be evidence-based. If a healthcare facility wants to add more aspects to the measuring standards, measures must be genuinely important in promoting positive healthcare outcomes. Health care facilities should take careful precautions not to include aspects that can be too costly with limited impact on the quality of healthcare. Additionally, the monitoring authority must ensure that all other unmonitored aspects are not ignored. Some facilities manage to avoid selective concentration of standards by engaging other professional societies to keep tabs on every key quality deliverable. Notably, there are several important standards that make it challenging to provide evidence-based criteria for the whole array. To solve the predicament, the profession developed more than one way of measuring the process. Some processes are measured implicitly, while others are measured implicitly. The explicit method is performed on critical aspects, while the implicit criterion is accepted for the other processes.
References
Alshammari, M., Duff, J., & Guilhermino, M. (2019). Barriers to nurse–patient communication in Saudi Arabia: an integrative review. BMC nursing, 18(1), 1-10.
Burger, J. L., Parker, K., Cason, L., Hauck, S., Kaetzei, D, O’Nan, C., & White, A. (2010). Responses to work complexity: The novice to expert effect. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 32(4), 497-510. Web.
Dahlke, S. A., Hunter, K. F., & Negrin, K. (2019). Nursing practice with hospitalised older people: Safety and harm. International journal of older people nursing, 14(1), e12220. Web.
Hebda, T., Czar, P., & Mascara, C. (2019). Handbook of informatics for nurses and health care professionals (6th ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.
Hoffman, K. A., Aitken, L. M., & Duffield, C. (2009). A comparison of novice and expert nurses cue collection during clinical decision-making: Verbal protocol analysis. International Journal of Nursing Ii Studies, 46(10), 1335-1344. Web.
Horntvedt, M. E. T., Nordsteien, A., Fermann, T., & Severinsson, E. (2018). Strategies for teaching evidence-based practice in nursing education: a thematic literature review. BMC medical education, 18(1), 1-11. Web.
Kooken, W. C., & Kerr, N. (2018). Blending the liberal arts and nursing: Creating a portrait for the 21st century. Journal of Professional nursing, 34(1), 60-64. Web.
Krick, T., Huter, K., Domhoff, D., Schmidt, A., Rothgang, H., & Wolf-Ostermann, K. (2019). Digital technology and nursing care: a scoping review on acceptance, effectiveness and efficiency studies of informal and formal care technologies. BMC health services research, 19(1), 1-15. Web.
Laari, L., & Dube, B. M. (2017). Nursing students’ perceptions of soft skills training in Ghana. Curationis, 40(1), 1-5.
Mantzoukas, S. (2008). A review of evidence based practice, nursing research and reflection: levelling the hierarchy. Journal of clinical nursing, 17(2), 214-223.
McBride, S., Tietze, M., Robichaux, C., Stokes, L., & Weber, E. (2018). Identifying and addressing ethical issues with use of electronic health records. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1). Web.
Ortiz, M. R. (2018). Patient-centered care: Nursing knowledge and policy. Nursing science quarterly, 31(3), 291-295. Web.
Papathanasiou, I. V., Kleisiaris, C. F., Fradelos, E. C., Kakou, K., & Kourkouta, L. (2014). Critical thinking: the development of an essential skill for nursing students. Acta Informatica Medica, 22(4), 283. Web.
Pélissier, C., Cavelier, C., Vercherin, P., Roche, F., Patural, H., & Fontana, L. (2020). Vigilance and sleepiness in nurses working 12 hour shifts and their coping strategies. Journal of Nursing Management.
Rieg, L. S., Newbanks, R. S., & Sprunger, R. (2018). Caring from a Christian worldview: Exploring nurses’ source of caring, faith practices, and view of nursing. Journal of Christian Nursing, 35(3), 168-173. Web.
Traynor, M., Gallagher, A., Martin, L., & Smyth, S. (2010). From novice to expert: Using simulators to enhance practical skill. British Journal of Nursing, 19(22), 14224426. Web.
Walker-Reed, C. A. (2016). Clinical coaching: The means to achieving a legacy of leadership and professional development in nursing practice. Journal of Nursing Education &Practice, 6(6), 41-47. Web.
Weiss, S. A., Tappen, R. M., & Grimley, K. (2019). Essentials of nursing leadership & management. FA Davis.