Communication for Continuation of Client Care
The communication landscape is changing rapidly, thereby creating new challenges for health care workers, including nurses (Gollust & Dwyer, 2013). For example, the emergence of communication technologies such as social media, blogs, among others, means that nurses are confronted with an avalanche of sources of information. While some of the sources and the information they contain might be authentic, others can have misleading information.
Misleading sources of information can hamper professional communication, therapeutic, and care continuity by nurses. Potential issues that communication challenges might cause include harm to patients through violation of privacy and confidentiality; harm to the nurse’s integrity when information is shared inappropriately; and breach of nurse-patient relation (Gollust & Dwyer, 2013). Additionally, communication may raise ethical concerns at the population level (Gollust & Dwyer, 2013). Therefore, while the ANA Standards of Practice and ANA Code of Ethics are critical for practice, they have to be communicated in ways and using platforms that preserve the intended objectives.
The ANA Standards of Nursing Practice provide nursing scope along with standards that apply to all nurses. Therefore, specialty organizations need to align with the broad guideline by creating or revising their practice scope and standard (American Nurses Association, 2015). The standards focus on two broad categories, namely, practice and professional performance. In terms of practice, the standards specify five key areas with roles of the registered nurse, namely; assessment, diagnosis, identification of outcomes, planning, and implementation. Notably, in the implementation phase, the registered nurse must coordinate care, undertake health teaching as well as health promotion, offer consultation services, and undertake prescriptive together with treatment functions (American Nurses Association, 2015). The final standard is an evaluation of whether the progress towards achieving intended outcomes is on track. Similarly, the registered nurse plays different roles in professional performance through education, practice quality, evaluation of professional practice, and collegiality. Professional performance of the registered nurse also focuses on collaboration, ethics, research, utilization of resources, along with leadership (American Nurses Association, 2015).
The ANA code of ethics has nine provisions for nurses. The first provision focuses on respect as well as compassion. The second provision is about commitment to the patient. In contrast, the third provision highlights advocating for and protecting patients’ rights and safety (American Nurses Association, 2015). The fifth provision describes duty to self as well as others.
In contrast, the sixth provision describes the nurse’s effort to enhance ethics. The seventh provision is about professional advances through research, inquiry, standards development, as well as policy generation (American Nurses Association, 2015). The eighth provision requires nurse collaboration, while the ninth provision is about the articulation of nursing values.
It is concluded that communication is essential to a registered nurse. However, miscommunication can have negative impacts on the application of guidelines and therapeutic process. The ANA has clear statements that can be communicated through appropriate communication channels, both online and offline. The communication channels can be verified to assure nurses about the authenticity of the information contained.
References
American Nurses Association (2015). Code of ethics with interpretative statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/Code-ofEthics-For-Nurses.html
Gollust, S.E., & Dwyer, A.M. (2013). Ethics of clinician communication in a changing communication landscape: Guidance from professional societies. JNCI Monographs, 2013(47), 147-152. https://doi.org/10.1093/jncimonographs/lgt028