The Relationship between the Elements of the Nursing Process - Research Paper Example

Application of Findings to the Nursing Process The nursing process is assumed as the common thread that connects various kinds of nurses involvedin different areas of nursing using innovative methods that present a complete picture as to holistic healthcare for patients. The relationship between the elements of the nursing process and the current research are analyzed below. 1.1. Assessment The current research has collected data systematically while documenting it and its limitations at the same time. The collected data has primary and secondary concerns outlined, with primary concerns stemming from healthcare processes while secondary concerns stem from socio-cultural processes. For example, work interventions (WIs) have been attributed to primary concerns, such as direct patient care, and to secondary concerns, such as discourse between nurses during work. Hence, the findings of the article show that when assessing a patient it is advisable to include primary, as well as secondary factors to come through with a complete picture. 1.2. Diagnosis The diagnosis carried out in the current research presents a twofold approach that addresses immediate, as well as long-term concerns. The research has highlighted that nurses face WI’s in a far greater proportion than expected; this may lead to unsatisfactory patient care problem that needs immediate focus and attention to be resolved. Issues that may require immediate focus include WIs due to direct and indirect patient care, engagement by patient’s family, etc. Furthermore, the research has diagnosed that a long-term approach is required to deal with nurse’s habits, such as conversing with each other during work or paying little more than normal attention to the task after a WI. In doing so, the current research has accounted for immediate, as well as long-term, focuses that conform to the nursing process. 1.3. Outcomes/Planning The current article has outlined various steps that can be taken in order to deal with the problems and issues identified after the assessment and diagnosis. These steps comprise dealing with immediate and more long-term concerns. For example, immediate concerns can be dealt with by relocating the medicine cabinets from a centralized setting to a singular placement near the patient’s bed. However, the research presupposes that this may not be possible in each given healthcare setting so localized solutions may be required. Steps related to more long-term issues, such as changing the working habits of nurses, can be taken in small phases involving training, monitoring and self-assessment. The current article is specific about the measures required, as well as provides measures that can be implemented practically to make a difference. This, in turn, conforms to the outcomes/planning element of the nursing process. 1.4. Implementation Implementation as per nursing process requires the utilization of a care plan so that sustainability of care can be achieved. The current article outlines different methods to achieve sustainability of greater nursing care by reducing WIs, but no single plan has been chalked out for implementation. Instead, the current article mentions that actual implementation plans will differ by the exact healthcare setting in use, although vague implementation steps have been outlined, as mentioned in the previous section. 1.5. Evaluation The current article does not provide highly concrete or detailed evaluation plans but does refer to them indirectly. In terms of nursing process, evaluation serves as effective feedback to modify the overall care plan continuously. Given that the findings of the current article apply in different forms to different healthcare settings, it can, therefore, be expected that their evaluation plans will also be different. However, there is little deniability that in these settings the evaluation criterion will still revolve around the central concept of WI. 2. Utilization of Findings by Students and Practicing Nurses Given the fact that WIs are a common part of the work routine in all kinds of healthcare centers (clinics, wards, hospitals etc.), there is a dire need to utilize the findings of the current article. The primary facet of this article’s results is that WIs are most common due to intervention by the colleagues. These WIs occur as colleagues share “personal problems or verbal reports” during the course of their work activities. There is little deniability that these WIs may pose serious problems to a patient’s care, for instance, preparing medicine doses for individual patients in a centralized medicine cabinet setting. The real solution here is for practicing nurses to realize that their working habits need to be changed. If practicing nurses begin to monitor their work activities on a personal scale and then infer how WIs affect their critical activities, it would become much simpler to modify their working habits. A simple way might be to carry a small notepad that could be used to note down a tally of how many WIs a nurse has to face during an entire shift. Over a course of days, this tallying could be made more specific by noting down how many WIs a nurse has to face during each timed hour. These would provide a far clearer picture of WIs to practicing nurses so that they can change their working habits. Once nurses become more aware of their working patterns, it will become simpler for them to deal with change management (Alvarez & Coiera, 2005). Another method for tallying WIs could be adopted if the staff of a common health care facility agreed to note down tallies of WIs for each other. These tallies could be daily counts at first, and then they could be made more specific by tallying by each timed hour. These mutual tallies could be compared together when agreed to by the staff so that a mutual learning effort could be achieved. As this effort proceeds, it would be better if staff members would notify each other when a WI is occurring. Gradually this pattern would ensure that WIs decrease to more acceptable levels and impinge non-critical functions only. The involvement of a group to learning and collective attempt to change the situation would ensure that change is accelerated while the transition remains smooth for all involved. In contrast to this, nursing students could implement the findings of this article in the beginning of their training sessions to ensure greater efficacy in their early career. Student nurses could begin keeping tallies of WIs within the confines of their studying activities. Based on the tabulation from these activities, the nursing students could easily classify what are the major reasons for these WIs. Once reasons are identified, the nursing students can begin implementing methods to decrease WIs either on a personal scale or on a social study group scale. Alternatively, these practices could be utilized in a classroom context. The effectiveness of these techniques could also be tested in an actual healthcare setting by nursing students. 3. Applicability of the Caritas Processes and Universal Need for Research Work interventions are a common cause for the drop in efficacy of healthcare workers in various healthcare settings. Above everything else, WIs make healthcare workers lose focus on their urgent tasks due to secondary or tertiary disturbances. The loss of focus from the primary task often means that the primary task is underperformed. This loss of efficacy is disturbing, given that people’s lives may be at stake due to the actions of nurses. WIs assume quite alarming role when put in context of critical health care operations, such as drug administration, life support decisions, and the like. In order to address the issues of WIs on a more structured and scientific basis it is advisable to conduct an empirical study that details causes for WIs, as well as their solutions. The universal need for the current research article can be seen in context of these arguments to prove its substantial contribution to patient care. In terms of the Caritas Processes, a number of elements of the Caritas Processes correspond to issues discussed in the article. Element number three of the Caritas Processes describes the need to nurture personal as well as other people’s beliefs and practices by being sensitive. WIs undermine this principle of the Caritas Processes as the efficacy of overall healthcare process drops, such as when a WI interferes with a nurse’s job to prepare a medicine dose for a patient. The preparation of the dose will be affected as the nurse’s attention will wander due to a WI and the nurse needs to be sensitive in order to enhance the focus on the primary task of preparing a medicinal dose. This kind of behavior has been cited by the current article as a primary concern for healthcare professionals including nurses affected by WIs. Similarly, element four of the Caritas Processes stresses on the development of helping, trusting and caring relationships. Relationships cannot be forged until and unless a involved professional is not fully aware of a patient’s needs. A large occurrence of WIs indicates that a healthcare professional is not looking to develop positive relationships with a patient. This could result in sharing personal problems at the workplace by gossiping while carrying out a healthcare task. However, such practice should be discouraged as it runs contrary to the Caritas Processes. As is often the case, intervention by the patient’s relatives constitute a WI that nurses have to face on and off. Often such interventions are based on listening to the stories of patient’s relatives. In order to save time and spare a headache nurses try to listen to such stories when attending a patient. However, this in itself represents a WI that is not supported by element five of the Caritas Processes. Instead, a nurse should allocate additional time that could be used to gauge the experiences or stories from patient’s relatives so that such activity does not constitute a WI. The current article also talks about using the findings to deliver lasting changes in the working habits of nurses. This corresponds to element seven of the Caritas Processes that stresses on the need to share teaching and learning, which can address individual needs and comprehension styles. The article talks of delivering changes to working habits in the short and long runs by adopting the change to a particular healthcare facility in focus. This would ensure that the individual needs of learners, as well as their comprehension styles, are focused on attempts to deliver sustainable change which can benefit patient care. 4. Description of the Population Sample and Critique The current article and research are based on the actions of registered nurses with at least six months of professional experience. The sampling strategy is focused on one event, namely, the medication administration round. The sample set is based on roughly one hundred medication administration rounds that have produced 366 cases of WIs. This data collection is restricted to one event alone, which indicates that these WIs and their repercussions specifically deal with this event alone. Moreover, the sample population is not described in detail according to personal characteristics (age, gender etc.) because these variables might have an influence on the distribution of WIs. In order to enhance the current applicability of the research it would be suitable to extend the observation of WIs to multiple events involved in healthcare, although each event ought to be studied separately. 5. Awareness of Nursing Community as to the Findings The nursing community is not fully aware of the findings of this research, although there is no doubt they are affected by it. The nursing community perfectly knows that WIs occur during healthcare activities, although the distribution of these WIs and their causes are not really looked into. The nursing community as a whole does not have concrete reasons for WIs; it can only be explained by the need to share stress in personal life through communication at work. This research can be seen in practice in quite a lot of different circumstances, such as nurses’ talking to each other while preparing medicine doses or administering drugs to patients. These small “chit chats” represent significant WIs that threaten to realign the primary focus to social activities. This contention is supported by the other research as well, which contends that errors increase by 60% when nurses are interrupted during the administration or preparation of drugs (Biron, Loiselle, & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2009). 6. Ethical Issues The primary ethical issue arising from WI and its impact on healthcare is a reduced nursing focus on healthcare activities that may jeopardize people’s lives. In order to deal with this problem, it is advisable to present actual findings, such as the article under discussion, to nurses so that the importance of their work is better realized. Furthermore, nurses could be provided with opportunities to learn to deal with these WIs through structured training programs. 7. Design of Study for Verification of the Findings The findings of this study can be verified through conducting a similar study that relies on the same event for observations. In order to conduct such a study it would be necessary to appeal to registered nurses with six months or more of professional experience. It would be advisable if the samples were collected from within the same ward or medicine cabinet setting to closely resemble the settings of this study. Moreover, the nurses should be appealed to gather data for WIs voluntarily, and this data could be compared to that of the observer or internee. References Alvarez, G., & Coiera, E. W. (2005). Interruptive communication patterns in the intensive care unit ward round. International Journal of Medical Informatics 74(10) , 791-796. Biron, A. D., Loiselle, C., & Lavoie-Tremblay, M. (2009). Work interruptions and their contribution to medication adminstration errors: An evidence review. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing 6(2) , 70-86. Read More