Nurses are the building blocks of the healthcare system, and they play an essential role in improving patient care. Their empathetic nature and unique qualities help them understand the needs of the patients better than the doctors or physicians. They understand the emotional and physical requirements of the patients. Hence, they provide more direct and hands-on care than any other health professional, working effectively to provide holistic care.
The hard work of nurses in the past two years is a prime illustration to reflect on how important of a role nurses play in bringing a positive impact in healthcare.
Their relentless efforts and determination during the time of pandemic helped face the coronavirus. As frontline bedside staff, they had to put their lives at risk and danger of contracting the infection, but they stayed put to continue their jobs. As a nurse, you must work on improving your performance continuously, and here are some ways you can do so:
1. Learn New Skills
As a healthcare professional, you need to be prepared to take on new challenges in your clinical and educational experiences. Being a life-long learner will help you become proficient in your everyday operations and activities. You can become more knowledgeable in this field by being on the floor with your superiors and learning from their practical actions.
Moreover, you can also take up academic courses to expand your nursing education. Fortunately, online education allows you to continue your studies with your official duties. Therefore, aspirants can opt for online masters nursing programs to learn new skills and positively impact healthcare. It will allow you to become more advanced in your career by bringing you up to date about ongoing healthcare crises and ways to deal with them. Advancing your educational expertise will also increase your chances of getting the highest-paying job in the nursing career. And most importantly, these new skills and information will make you a vital asset to the healthcare system.
2. Improve Communication
As a nurse, it will be your duty to ensure that the hospital staff is communicative and collaborative so that everyday operations can go smoothly. Nurses are natural caretakers, so they understand their patients better than anyone else.Thus, they should deliver proper messages from them to their physicians. It is also crucial for nursing staff to contact each other during work hours, especially if they’re looking after the same patient, to keep themselves updated.
Nurses should also be confident enough to point out and stop anything unethical that’s happening before their eyes. They should also be observant enough to notice and report any equipment out of work to deal with the problem on hand. If you see an issue that needs to be brought into the limelight, contact a nurse leader or management so that they can solve it before it cultivates into a more significant problem.
3. Advocate for Patients
It is very common for patients not to know about their fundamental healthcare rights. Sometimes, they are too hesitant to pose quarries. But nurses should know how to advocate for patients to provide them with a safe and satisfactory hospital experience. You, as a nurse, can ensure that your patients are fully aware of the decisions that their doctors are taking for their health. You should make sure that they are rightfully aware of the procedures and operations they are going through. As nurses, they will expect you to provide them with support and information that their physicians cannot give.
In this profession, patient advocacy is all about protecting their dignity, giving them relief from their pain, and promoting healthcare equality. You must remember that as long as they are under your care, you are their voice, and so, you need to be vigilant and attentive towards them.
4. Offer Emotional Support
Staying at the hospital can be scary and stressful for patients, and nurses understand this. They might be frightened because they have some unanswered questions or feel like being kept in oblivion. As a nurse, you can bring a positive change by acknowledging and eliminating this fear from the patient’s heart. You can address all these issues one by one and make them feel welcomed to ask questions. And, with the permission of their doctor, you can also elaborate to them about their condition and the medical procedures they require.
As a nurse, you will have to find ways to anchor your patient’s anxiety and help them manage stress. By offering emotional support, you will be providing them with security and relief, which will help them understand and navigate their situation better. The nursing support impacts the patient’s mind, which becomes precious for them even in later years of life and helps speed up their recovery. Your compassion towards their well-being will also improve their experience in the hospital and increase satisfaction.
5. Teach Self-Care
The holistic healing of the patient is one of the most significant concerns of a good nurse. As a nurse, your view towards your job should be to provide total and complete care so that your patient doesn’t have to return to the hospital in pain. Nurses work towards removing sufferings from their patient’s life, and for that, they encourage them to learn self-care. You can do this by asking your patients open-ended questions so that you can evaluate their grasp of the situation.
In addition, motivational interviewing and counseling will also be conducive to educating them about improving their health. You can sit with them and create a list of specific objectives and goals to help them live a healthier lifestyle. You can make sure that the patients can take care of themselves when you are not around to check their daily weight, blood sugar levels, insulin intake, and food selections. Hence, you should teach them, if it comes to that, to learn how to do these basic self-care activities by themselves.
Conclusion
To conclude all that’s been discussed, as a nurse, you will find yourself in several situations where one good choice could improve the healthcare system. Your part in bringing a positive impact is focused on improving the quality of care your patients receive. It should be about their physical well-being and mental health; only then would they be able to get completely better. Remember to stay compassionate towards the patient and their visiting family to provide them with a satisfactory hospital experience.
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