Interprofessional Collaboration
Through this class, I have learned several concepts and practices that are essential to nursing practice. It became evident that evidence-based practices (EBP) promote patient outcomes. Through EBP, nurses can be adopt about new medical interventions and procedures. Moreover, EBP lowers the overall cost of care by reducing the length of stay in the hospital. One of the EBP that took my interest was purposeful hourly rounding. Research indicates that this practice reduces the number of hospital falls and enhances patient engagement (Brown, 2016). As a nurse, I believe that implementing purposeful hourly rounding improves the overall quality of care.
Interprofessional Collaboration
Interprofessional collaboration is a critical aspect of enhancing the quality and accessibility of healthcare. According to Sullivan et al. (2015) collaboration is based on the belief that it is better healthcare personnel to work together to address multiple issues that affect the health of families, communities, and individuals, rather than having one physician solve them on their own. The purposeful hourly rounding, for instance, can only have a positive impact on the patient if all healthcare workers participate in implementing the practice. Indeed, interprofessional collaboration promotes quality care for the patient; therefore, healthcare workers need to be educated on various aspects of cooperation, including mutual trust, effective communication, accountability, and teamwork.
Healthcare Delivery and Clinical Systems
Healthcare delivery system entails the management and provision from diagnostic, prevention, treatment, palliative, and rehabilitative services. The cooperation of nurses, pharmacists, doctors, and other healthcare staff is necessary to provide this wide range of services. In this regard, shared governance is required to maintain a seamless healthcare delivery system. According to (McKnight & Moore, 2019), shared governance allows all healthcare staff, including bedside nurses, to participate in decision making. Thus, through shared governance, EBP, such as purposeful hourly rounding, can be implemented successfully.
Ethical Considerations in Health Care
Ethics is an essential aspect of healthcare provision. As Haddad and Geiger (2020), ethical values help nurses minimize harm and help them navigate ethical dilemmas. In this regard, conducting a purposeful rounding, the nurse has to seek the patient’s approval. Also, an interprofessional meeting should be held every morning to brief all the physicians on the components of the purposeful rounding. Healthcare personnel will also be required to explain to the patient the importance of the EBP and ensure their privacy during examination.
Practice of Culturally Sensitive Care
Practicing culturally sensitive care promotes access to healthcare. Tucker et al. (2012) highlighted that physicians should consider the patient’s cultural beliefs and attitudes to enhance patient engagement. When conducting the purposeful rounding, practitioners may need a translator for patients who do not understand English.
Preservation of Integrity of Human Dignity
In the care continuum, nurses are the primary advocates for the patient. In this regard, preserving human dignity is one of the advocacy roles for nurses. Human dignity entails ensuring privacy, access to basic needs, patient safety, autonomy, and respect (American Sentinel University, 2020). It also involves being sensitive to the patient’s unique circumstances (American Sentinel University, 2020). Thus, when implementing EPB, nurses should preserve human dignity for their patients.
Population Health Concerns
In a hospital setting, patients often have various health concerns, which affect nursing care. For instance, nurses must assess obesity, substance use and abuse, allergies, and heart disease when implementing evidence-based interventions. When assessing a patient during purposeful rounding, nurses should consider the health concerns that may affect the quality of care and reduce the length of hospital stay.
Role of Technology
Technology has drastically changed the healthcare sector. According to Thimbleby (2013), technology will continue to shape healthcare delivery in the future. In this regard, technology should be integrated into the new practice approaches to promote patient outcomes. For instance, when implementing the purposeful rounding, it is necessary to create electronic medical records to enable physicians to receive real-time changes in patient conditions. Technology will also promote interprofessional collaboration.
Health Policy
Health policy provides the limits within which practitioners can provide their services. The World Health Organization (WHO) (2020) defines health policy as actions, plans, or decisions implemented to achieve a particular healthcare goals. For instance, to adopt purposeful rounding as a policy in a hospital setting, it is necessary to define the importance of patient privacy and autonomy, explicitly state the role of a healthcare personnel when conducting the practice, the documentation and recording keeping process, and describe the procedure for interprofessional collaboration.
Leadership and Economic Models
Effective management of healthcare is necessary to ensure quality care for all patients. As NEJM Catalyst (2017) indicates, value-based nursing care is the most efficient economic model for prizing nursing care. This model views nursing care as a practice that has both financial and clinical impact on the patient and the society. For this model to be effective in delivering quality care, it should be managed by good leaders with integrity, self-awareness, and the ability to delegate.
Health Disparities
Disparities are evident in the current healthcare system. According to Weinstein et al. (2017), healthcare disparities are discrepancies in the attainment of full healthcare access. It can be measured by assessing the burden of disease, prevalence, mortality, and incidences in various ethnicities, geographical locations, and income levels. Understanding the impact of healthcare disparities is essential to promoting quality care. When implementing the purposeful rounding, for instance, healthcare personnel should be trained on how to conduct the assessments to maximize the efficacy of the practice on all patients.
Outline of Overall Personal Discovery
At the beginning of this course, it was not easy to understand most of the elements, particularly the practicality of interprofessional collaboration. However, upon further reading and consultation, I realized that cooperation is the future of patient care. I am happy I completed this course. I believe that the challenges I experienced along the way have made me more focused on seeking to implement EBP, including the purposeful rounding, to promote patient outcomes.