Healthcare is a fast-paced environment where the nurse is constantly faced with
ID: 124472 • Letter: H
Question
Healthcare is a fast-paced environment where the nurse is constantly faced with juggling multiple priorities. This can lead to "cutting corners" behaviors that may lead to unsafe practices. In 2-3 pages, describe examples of unsafe practices that you have observed in your career and explain how these practices can be avoided. Include a discussion of the nurse's responsibility when he or she observes unsafe practices of others. Submit your completed assignment by following the directions linked below. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates. Save your assignment as a Microsoft Word document. (Mac users, please remember to append the ".docx" extension to the filename.) The name of the file should be your first initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the name of the assignment, and an underscore and the date. An example is shown below:
Explanation / Answer
Healthcare is growing at tremendous speed with increasing demand from healthcare workers for quality care. And many a times, the healthcare services are demanded so high that with worldwide attrition, shortage of skilled workers have increased the burden on the existing groups of people working. It creates lot of stress among the employees to fulfill their duties and satisfy the clients with their demands. The demands have inflated because of the expensive treatment modalities what the customer bear. Therefore, during such emotional and physical turbulence, nurses are forced to engage in unsafe practices during their tenure. There are many reported and unreported unsafe practices around the world. Some of the examples are mentioned below;
1) Failure to maintain confidentiality of interaction and confidentiality of records
Disclosing or gossiping about patient's information or health status with other co-workers who are not involved in care or in public is breaching patient's right to privacy. These activities are commonly spoken around the hospital.
How to avoid-
- Maintain good relationship within the team
- Education is the key tool
- Demonstration of policies and protocol
2) Failure to care for patients with respect and love
Negligency of patient care is a punishable mistake because the patients arrive in hospital when they are in real need for love and support. To hurt someone during pain can create a bad emotional turmoil to clients. The client's personal , psychological needs had to be looked after properly for speedy recovery. Due to long working hours, shortage of manpower, the nurses are made to work with multiple priorities this can also hamper the good nursing care delivery system.
How to avoid-
-Maintaining good nurse patient ratio
- Try to stop such behaviour if noticed
- if it is a serious concern, that has to be escalated to supervisors or managers
- teach the nurses about role of empathy for patients
- Mentoring program to keep them updated
- Monitoring the nurses performance and feedback from peer groups
- Performance evaluation with the nurse by one to one.
3) Physical or verbal abuse:
Abusive behaviour is not at all accepted one in any organisation. Because , it will creates discomfort to the patients and their families. Ultimately, it will reflect on the customer satisfaction index with poor ratings. And such behaviours are liable for legal implications.
How to avoid-
- such activities should be immediately curved down
- Documentation of the event and escalation to supervisors or managers.
- Watchful monitoring of nurses and their behaviour for any untoward changes
- Counselling of nurses as and when required
4) Staff misconduct in the form unprofessional attitude or behaviour
Unprofessional attitude leads to unstable working environment disturbing the quality of patient care. Lacking respect for fellow employees, indulging in malpractice are not really a good sign of a stable mentality.
How to avoid-
-During recruitment, thorough analysis of the employee is needed ,to understand about past such events
- Training on coping mechanisms
- Nurse engagement activities
- counselling
Nursing responsibilities:
- Any unsafe practices if noticed should be stopped immediately
- Monitoring patients for any signs of physical harm
- Informed consent from patients or their families
- Communication and clear documentation of the event is most important
- Report to be drafted to supervisors or nurse managers and to notify them immediately.
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