Management Skills in Adult Nursing - Essay Example

Communication with other health professionals is vital to health care delivery. In this case, communicating with the attending physician was essential to the patient’s care. The attending physician is the primary health professional charged with the patient’s care. All medical decisions and interventions (except independent nursing interventions) have to be cleared with him. The discharge notes indicated that the patient had to be taught various techniques on how to prevent future falls and had to have a diet plan.

Fox (2008) advises that making such plans with other health professionals is a part of the nursing practice. I was able to coordinate well with the physician, especially as he indicated the need to establish a high-calcium and high-fibre diet with the client; moreover, he also indicated in the discharge notes that good lighting and patient assistance during mobile periods would help prevent falls. I also communicated with the patient and his family, I used simple words, avoiding the use of technical medical terms (Bell, et al., 2009). I also asked the patient to repeat some of the health teachings back to me.

I encouraged the patient and the family to ask questions on how they could prevent falls and on the patient’s diet plan (Bell, et al., 2009). I patiently answered their questions and also took the time to demonstrate what they could do to help the patient recover from the fracture. I taught the patient how to safely get up from bed, how to safely walk from one place to another, and I also communicated with the family by reviewing with them what they could do to help their family member (Bell, et.al., 2009).

This included the meals they could prepare for the patient, the need for the patient to safely move about, and the importance of preventing and managing fall risks. Based on my readings on healthy diet plans for elderly patients, I was able to discover that I need some improvements in my practice on such aspect of nursing care. Although I had the working knowledge on the appropriate diet plans for elderly and for patients with recent hip surgeries, I was not thoroughly confident in such knowledge.

Webb (2011) recommends the use of primary evidence in the practice. Using the books in the hospital helped provide me with immediate knowledge that was essential to the establishment of an effective diet plan. There were information in the books which I was not aware of and reviewing such data allowed me to understand the condition of the patient and his diet needs.