Role of Nurses in the Healthcare System
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Abstract
Nurses are a critical constituent of the healthcare department. Without nurses, the whole healthcare system collapses. Nurses play specific roles that impact efficient healthcare provision. Nurses act as the connection between patients and doctors. Doctors depend on nurses to understand the patients’ developments, while patients heavily depend on nurses to relay their development to doctors. Therefore, nurses’ responsibilities underline their significance to the healthcare system.
Role of Nurses in the Healthcare System
Nurses play a critical role in the healthcare system. They provide hands-on care to the patients by working at the forefront of all the healthcare settings. According to Duffy (2013), nurses assist medical doctors with the necessary information required for decision-making per how the patient fares. Two issues that influence nurses’ roles as medical professionals are workflow and workaround issues. For the healthcare system to function effectively, nurses’ role needs to be aligned in accordance with workflow issues.
Nurses’ Roles
Nurses are responsible for caring and advocating for everyone indifferent of their pious background or ethnicity and offer them support throughout their sickness and health. Nurses have many responsibilities which constitute the roles they play. The roles include medical and symptoms history recording, patient education on proper handling of illness, medication administration, and patient treatment. The health care system depends significantly on nurses’ roles to function effectively. However, for nurses to play their roles efficiently, the work setting must address the workflow and work-along issues.
Workaround or Workflow Issues that Impacts Nurses in their Work Setting
Workflow refers to the tasks set chronologically and in an orderly manner for them to accomplish specific resources or people. Nurses are impacted by workflow issues such as new treatment policies and technologies, the difficulties in coordination of healthcare to critically ill patients, and the enactment and execution of changes significant for offering patient-related care (Schoen, 2011). The principal workflow issue is a technology, for instance, barcode medication administration. When such technology malfunctions or incorrect and inaccurate data has been fed into it, workaround workflow issues are caused.
Excellent and effective organization of the health care system resolves any workflow issue. Therefore, harmonization in the healthcare system is created when nurses play their roles vitally. The introduction of new policies, methodologies and technology leads to nurses learning and adapting effectively to ensure that services are offered efficiently (Boykin, 2014).
Conclusion
Nurses play a vital role to ensure the healthcare system functions efficiently. However, for nurses to play their roles efficiently, the work setting must address the workflow and work-along issues. Cooperation and harmonization by nurses ensure workflows issues such as introducing new technology and new treatment methods are effectively managed. Therefore, the development and improvement of the healthcare system depend on nurses to continuously play their role efficiently.
References
Boykin, A., Schoenhofer, S. O. B., & Valentine, K. L. (2014). Health care system transformation for nursing and health care leaders: Implementing a culture of caring.
Duffy, J. R., & Duffy, J. R. (2013). Quality caring in nursing and health systems: Implications for clinicians, educators, and leaders.
Schoen, D. C. (2011). Adult orthopaedic nursing. Philadelphia: Lippincott.