Role of Professional Nurse Essay
many changes are occurring in healthcare, in areas ranging from technology to the delivery of patient care. So it is not surprising that the role of professional nurses continues to evolve. A Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) is now the recommended level of education for employment as a registered nurse (RN). Nurses also have to be technologically savvy while demonstrating cost efficiency as they provide quality care. Nurses are not just at the bedside anymore, recording vital signs and dispensing medicine; instead they are taking on positions of greater responsibility.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
What Roles Do Professional Nurses Hold in Healthcare Today?
Florence Nightingale introduced novel concepts to the nursing practice that decreased mortality rates. Her contributions, such as establishing the need for sanitation, recognizing dietary requirements, providing round-the-clock patient care, instituting triage, collecting statistical evidence, encouraging education and promoting advocacy, form the foundation of nursing. While these nursing fundamentals are the most important components of the practice, nurses today are expanding their role as caregivers to include much more:
Communicator
Nurses are prepared to collaborate with a healthcare team to effectively perform treatments and procedures. Thus, nurses manage patient care. They ensure cohesive and coordinated care for successful patient outcomes.
Holistic Caregiver
Healthcare should address a patient’s cultural, spiritual and mental needs. Increasing diversity in a growing patient population requires nurses to demonstrate cultural awareness and sensitivity. Patients may have specific needs and preferences due to their religion or gender, for example. Nurses need to be respectful of, and knowledgeable about, diverse backgrounds while remaining vigilant in providing quality care.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Instructor
Technology goes hand in hand with healthcare, and providers are using new types of machines and applications every day. Medicine is becoming personalized requiring nurses to instruct patients about medical apps that can enhance traditional care. Patients can now use apps to monitor their glucose, track their blood pressure or access helpful information.
Specialists
Many patients are older with multiple, multifaceted health conditions. By choosing the appropriate medical specialization, nurses can address complications related to diabetes, obesity, heart problems, kidney disease and dementia.
Researcher
Nurses use research to deliver care. They gather and analyze data to glean insights they can apply to facilitating patient care and pinpointing best practices.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
What Are Some Trends in Nursing?
In their contemporary role, nurses are more involved with improving a patient’s experience, reducing medical errors, lowering costs and decreasing hospital readmission’s. In addition to branching out into new areas like health coaching to prevent diseases and cultivate a dedication to healthy living, they are also pursuing positions in the following emerging fields:
Informatics.
Genetics.
Genomics.
Health.
Many nursing schools and healthcare organizations are following the recommendation found in the 2010 report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which was renamed the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in 2015. The IOM report suggested that 80 percent of nurses should hold a BSN by 2020.
The demand for highly educated nurses will keep rising because large numbers of nurses with Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) and Doctor of Philosophy in nursing (Ph.D.) degrees are retiring. Moreover, nurses with advanced degrees are needed for positions in academics, family care and oncology.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Why Is Socialization, Accountability and Advocacy Important in Nursing?
Socialization in nursing is an integral part of developing a commitment to the profession. Through skillful and responsible performance, nurses can secure their professional development, which contributes to their socialization along with a sense of belonging and purpose.
Accountability is an obligation or willingness to uphold certain standards. Nurses sometimes have to make quick judgments or take charge of a situation, so accountability is a factor in their profession. Nurses who are accountable take responsibility for their actions. They accept all consequences and do not make excuses.
In protecting a patient’s medical, legal and human rights, a nurse serves as an advocate. The nurse’s job is to inform and support patients when they have questions or are apprehensive about a treatment, procedure or any other aspect of their care.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
The evolving role of professional nurses is intertwined with technology. Even though technology is integral to nursing, nurses provide the human touch and are still at the forefront of patient care. No matter what type of healthcare setting they work in, they have the most interaction with patients. Nurses assess and monitor patients and relay information to other care providers. With the advent and spread of mobile technology and medicine, nurses are no longer confined to practicing in physical buildings. They are able to assist patients in their communities and homes, in person or with the use of mobile technology.
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Professional Nursing Role
There are many opportunities to shape the future of the nursing profession and nursing practice since the nurses improve the quality of the lives of their clients, community and society. Nurses provide care for the sick. Are the first providers of primary health care, wellness and self- care.
The uniqueness of nursing has its focus on the care of the client, the community and society. The basis for the profession is a theoretical body of information defining its skills, abilities and norms. A professional nurse provides a specified service and follows a code of ethics for practice. Professional nurse have autonomy in decision making and practice.
The role of the professional nurse has evolved from the days of Florence Nightingale (1880), when nurses were expected to provide care, perform housekeeping duties, wash the linen, prepare and serve the meals. Throughout history nurses have had many roles: direct care provider, client advocate , teacher counselor and researcher.
Nursing includes keeping people healthy; assisting them to adapt to lifestyle changes resulting from illness or injury; promoting comfort measures; teaching and educating clients about their health and well-being; striving to improve comfort, dignity and respect at the life´s end.
The role of a nurse meets client and family needs; guide, assist and teach the client and family and provide an environment that facilitates client and family growth and development.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Nursing roles
Direct Care Provider: the nurse assists the client to regain health through the healing process. The nurse provides a holistic approach to care which includes: assisting the client/family in coping with the physical, emotional, social and spiritual impacts of the illness.
Protector and Client Advocate: the nurse helps maintain a safe environment for the client and takes steps to prevent injury and protect the client from possible adverse effects of diagnostic or treatment measures. The nurse protects client´s human and legal rights.
Case Manager: the nurse coordinates the activities of the other health care providers in collaboration with the direct care providers ( assisting with scheduling of tests and procedures etc).
Client/Family Educator: nurses provide clients and their family with the information and skills necessary to manage their illness independently.
Career roles
Nurse Educator: they are responsible for teaching nursing theory, clinical practice, technical skills to prepare the students to take the censurer examination and to assume the role of the nurses.
Advanced Practice Nurse: the nurse has a master´s degree in nursing and expertise in a specialized area of practice ( they may specialize in the management of a specific population such as pediatrics or gerontology or a client population such as oncology or pulmonary). They can be: clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, certified registered nurse anesthetists.
Nurse Administrator: nurse manages client care and specific nursing services within a health care agency. Position range from : middle management, such as nurse manager or supervisor, to upper management, such as associate director, director or vice president.
Nurse Researcher: is a doctor ally prepared nurse who investigates problems to improve nursing care, further defines and expands the scope of nursing, or validates nursing care practices.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
So, why someone would choose a nurse profession: because nursing is so flexible, is so vast, means so much and everything. Because of its diversity of fields. Because the roles and responsibilities are expanding all the time and that can makes out of you a professional with unlimited skills and abilities.
Professional standards describe the competent level of care in each phase of the nursing process. They reflect a desired and achievable level of performance against which a nurse’s actual performance can be compared. The main purpose of professional standards is to direct and maintain safe and clinically competent nursing practice.
These standards are important to our profession because they promote and guide our clinical practice. They provide an evaluation tool for yourself and your colleagues to ensure clinical proficiency and safety. Professional nursing standards are also used to provide a framework for developing clinical competency checklists or proficiency evaluations for a specific clinical unit or employer. And they may be used as a comparison tool to evaluate a nurse’s care if the employer suspects the nurse has developed unsafe work habits or isn’t adhering to established organizational policies or widely accepted guidelines established by state and federal laws or leading healthcare organizations.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Professional standards assist us, our management team, and our healthcare organization to develop safe staffing practices, delegate tasks to licensed and unlicensed personnel, ensure adequate documentation, and even create policies for new technology such as social media. For example, if a nurse discloses on a social media site that he or she is providing care to a specific patient, it potentially violates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Violating a professional standard can expose you and your healthcare organization to liability and potential loss of censurer.
Professional standards guarantee that we’re accountable for our clinical decisions and actions, and for maintaining competence during our career. They’re patient centered, promote the best possible outcome, and minimize exposure to risk of harm. These standards encourage us to persistently enhance our knowledge base through experience, continuing education, and the latest guidelines.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
We can utilize professional standards to identify areas for improvement in our clinical practice and work areas, as well as to improve patient and workplace safety. We must continue to ensure that our—and our peers’—clinical practice meets or exceeds established professional standards to maintain the trust and respect of our patients and the community.
You can review professional standards by visiting the websites of accredited organizations such as the American Heart Association, the American Nurses Association, The Joint Commission, and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, as well as state and national regulatory agencies such as your state’s board of nursing. Specialty areas of nursing will typically have a leadership organization that guides or establishes professional guidelines for the specific area of practice, such as the Emergency Nurses Association.
Roles and Functions of the Nurse
What exactly does a nurse do? Your answer probably depends on the experiences that you have had in the past. Most people think a nurse is someone who gives a shot at the doctor’s office – or simply is a doctor’s assistant. Furthermore, images of nurses in the media also paint a different picture of who a nurse really is.
However, a nurse has a number of roles that he or she performs, often at the same time, depending on a patient’s needs. With all of the changes in healthcare over the last few decades, that role has expanded even more. Let’s explore a few of these roles.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Caregiver
As a caregiver, a nurse provides hands-on care to patients in a variety of settings. This includes physical needs, which can range from total care (doing everything for someone) to helping a patient with illness prevention. The nurse maintains a patient’s dignity while providing knowledgeable, skilled care.
In addition, nurses care holistically for a patient. Holistic care emphasizes that the whole person is greater than the sum of their parts. This means that nurses also address psycho social, developmental, cultural, and spiritual needs. The role of caregiver includes all of the tasks and skills that we associate with nursing care, but also includes the other elements that make up the whole person.
Decision Maker
Another role of the nurse, as a decision maker, is to use critical thinking skills to make decisions, set goals, and promote outcomes for a patient. These critical thinking skills include assessing the patient, identifying the problem, planning and implementing interventions, and evaluating the outcomes. A nurse uses clinical judgment – his or her ability to discern what is best for the patient – to determine the best course of action for the patient.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Communicator
As a communicator, the nurse understands that effective communication techniques can help improve the healthcare environment. Barriers to effective communication can inhibit the healing process. The nurse has to communicate effectively with the patient and family members as well as other members of the healthcare team. In addition, the nurse is responsible for written communication, or patient charting, which is a key component to continuity of care.
Manager of Care
The nurse works with other healthcare workers as the manager of care and ensures that the patient’s care is cohesive. The nurse directs and coordinates care by both professionals and nonprofessionals to confirm that a patient’s goals are being met.
The nurse is also responsible for continuity from the moment a patient enters the hospital setting to the time they are discharged home and beyond. This may even include overseeing home care instructions. For nurses in the hospital setting, the nurse is responsible for prioritizing and managing the care of multiple patients at the same time, which adds another dimension to this process.
Patient Advocate
Being a patient advocate may be the most important of all nursing roles. As a patient advocate, the nurse’s responsibility is to protect a patient’s rights. When a person is sick, they are unable to act as they might when they are well. The nurse acts on the patient’s behalf and supports their decisions, standing up for his or her best interests at all times. This can empower a patient while recognizing that a patient’s values supersede the health care providers’.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
Roles and Functions of a Professional Nurse
Nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all setting. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the care of ill, disabled and dying people. With these nurses work in a large variety of specialties where they work independently and as part of a team to assess, plan, implement and evaluate care.
These nursing practices have been influenced by the nursing leaders in the past. Among the few of them were Clara Barton, Lavinia Dock, Lillian Wald, Margaret Sanger, Florence Nightingale and Virginia Henderson. Florence Nightingale, often considered as the first theorist, earned her title as “The Lady of Lamp” and was the Founder of Nursing while Virginia Henderson is considered as the “First Modern Nurse”.
In this paper, we are going to discuss what is nursing, nurses roles and functions and the two visionary leaders and their contributions to nursing.
Nursing and its Definition.
According to Virginia Henderson, “the unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge”.
She emphasized that nurses should be concerned on both healthy and ill individuals and interacts with clients even when recovery may not be feasible. She also mentioned that nurses may act as a client advocate and should provide education about the client’s health condition and nursing activities to be performed to improve client’s health condition.Role of Professional Nurse Essay Paper
The nurses goal is to assist the sick and healthy individual to gain independence as rapidly as possible in performing nursing activities. Moreover, nurses can either be a substitute (work for the person) to the fully dependent patient, supplementary (helping the person) to the partially-able patient and complementary (working with the person) to the able patient.