Nurses are an integral part of a healthcare facility. They support a hospital with their availability, selfless service, dedication to work, and a drive to appreciate their skills.
These qualities of nurses help them ace their responsibilities in an environment that is fast changing. The need for healthcare services is unlike any other time in the past.
The emergence of new disease and infections have led to medical breakthroughs; new treatments are being researched, medications and vaccinations are under trial, and new procedures are always becoming part of healthcare.
All these changes in healthcare require the nursing profession to evolve continuously. Hence, the nursing profession is always in need of improvement to improve patient care and jack up overall healthcare standards.
Improved nursing practice means the older population can get better services and get more years to live. So, here is a summary of those ways that can lead to better patient outcomes.
- Invest In A Nursing Specialization
There is nothing better than to invest in higher education programs to elevate nursing performance standards. Investing in a new specialization means honing your skills in a specific patient care area, learning new skills and treatment methods, and being more competent at your work.
This is by far the most result-oriented way of improving nursing in healthcare. Owing to these reasons, more hospitals prefer BSN-qualified nurses over those with a mere diploma. These BSN nurses are better apt at navigating the complex procedures in healthcare and garner better patient care outcomes.
Responding to the general preference of hospitals for BSN nurses, RN to BSN degree programs are gaining popularity and attention. More nurses gain additional qualifications to enjoy these opportunities. Better nursing education also means better problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.
- Imparting Evidence-Based Patient Care
When nurses across the board strive to offer patient care service, their cumulative efforts boost the whole profession of nursing. Nurses across all patient care facilities can improve their performance by practicing evidence-based patient care.
Evidence-based patient care is the amalgamation of research evidence, patient preferences, and personal clinical expertise. Evidence-based care means shunning the old-age ineffective practices.
For instance, outdated patient care practices include supplies, surgical equipment, or products that are no longer effective or necessary for treatment and procedures. On the contrary, a few examples of the use of evidence-based practices in nursing include the following:
- Infection Control
After coming to a patient care facility, the last thing patient wants is getting new diseases and infections. Better nursing practices can significantly reduce this issue and control the spread of disease and illness by using evidence-based infection control practices and policies.
Nursing work with multiple patients at a time, so it is highly likely that they carry the disease from one patient to another. But sticking to practices such as the proper use of personal protective equipment, sanitizers, keeping the healthcare environment clean, and the like can significantly prevent disease spread.
- Measuring Blood Pressure In Children In Research-Backed Ways
Another example of adhering to evidence-based practice is measuring blood pressure in research-supported ways. Measuring accurate blood pressure is integral to the procedure that follows these initial checks. Measuring blood pressure in children is quite different than it is for adults and involves the auscultatory method.
- Improving Teamwork In Nursing
Nurses constantly work in teams; they collaborate with medical professionals to develop patient care plans, organize patient care data, and share information with patients and their families.
Improving teamwork in nurses can ultimately elevate nursing quality by making their collaboration error-free and coordination more streamlined. Teamwork is also important for nurses because it creates a better communication mechanism with doctors, administration, and higher management.
Ways to improve teamwork in nurses include improving their written and verbal communication. Nurses should know how to communicate and convey information to people from diverse backgrounds. Communication can be enhanced through drills and training.
Transparency is another essential requirement of a team, so establishing transparency can significantly boost teams’ performance. Being transparent means that everyone has the same information and is responsible for their mistakes and good practices, knows what is expected, and meets the performance standards.
- Use Of Technology To Improve Nursing
Technology has impinged every aspect of our life and work environment; it is not different for nurses. Certain technologies can help nurses improve patient care, making it easier for doctors and nurses to provide better service.
These technological applications can eliminate errors from nurses when too few of them are working round the clock to care for various patients. Some stand-alone technologies rapidly transform healthcare and are a big relief for hackneyed nurses at the edge of burnout.
These devices include automated IV pumps to control the dosage and drips to patients, portable monitors to check on patients even if they are not present near patients or on the move, smart beds to track weight, and electronic health records to replace the need for keeping paper-based patient data.
- Address Burnout In Nurses
Nursing is only as good as the nurses adopting this profession. Even skilled nurse fails to deliver when facing burnout in their workplace.
Burnout is a situation when nurses feel overworked and overwhelmed due to long hours of work, emotional, mental, physical stress, lack of sleep, and food, among many other things. Burnout is also one of the reasons for nursing to abandon their service when they cannot take it anymore.
So, it is much bigger than a threat than one can perceive. Addressing burnout in nurses should be an urgent concern on the agenda of healthcare leaders. Making sure healthcare has enough nurse practitioners, one nurse is not made to fulfill the duty of multiple nurses, and proper breaks for food are available can be ways to reduce burnout in nurses.
Nursing needs to adopt the changes taking place in healthcare; it can happen by improving the teamwork skills of nurses, including various technological applications, and addressing burnout and other reasons of mental and emotional fatigue. The goal is to prepare a force of patient care providers with essential skills and expertise to meet future challenges head-on.
