Nursing Care Models Paper Example

Introduction

Nursing care models describe the strategies of care delivery to patients at the hospitals. Staffing is one of the significant factors that contribute to the provision of high-quality nursing care to patients. Two components of staffing are crucial; staffing mix and staffing intensity which describes the nursing team composition and the concentration in the nursing staff that provides care for patients respectively. The staffing intensity determines the availability of the nurses who provide the required services to patients and can be measured regarding nursing hours per patient day, which entails the number of hours a nurse delivers the nursing services to a patient in providing direct care. On the other hand, the nursing staff mix entails the proportion of time in hours utilized by the registered nurses in the total staffing hours, which involves the combined hours provided by the registered nurses, orderlies, and unlicensed assistive personnel. The quality of nursing care delivery is most likely determined by the quality of the nursing staffing factors.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

One of the nursing models used in the modern hospitals is the functional nursing care model whereby, the registered nurse acts as the team leader whereas the unlicensed assistive personnel perform other supportive duties. The functional model involves a task-oriented nursing system whereby the head nurse is assisted by the auxiliary nurse assistants who are proficient in a variety of nursing knowledge and skills. In this model, duties such as feeding, bathing, other simple tasks are commonly done by the orderlies or nursing aides.

The following shows the review and summary of two scholarly resources on team nursing model.

Fairbrother, G., Jones, A., & Rivas, K. (2010). Changing model of nursing care from individual patient allocation to team nursing in the acute inpatient environment. Contemporary Nurse, 35(2), 202-220.

According to this article, the functional nursing model is also called team model, and it involves a team leader, who is usually a registered nurse, working together with a team of unlicensed assistants to help deliver services patients. According to Fairbrother, the nurse may provide therapeutic services while the nursing assistants offer the assistive activities such as bathing or feeding.

Ferguson, L., & Cioffi, J. (2011). Team nursing: experiences of nurse managers in acute care settings. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(4), 5-11.

In this article, Ferguson examines the various experiences undergone by the nurse managers while delivering healthcare services in the acute care system. Since there are large workloads, nurses need to prioritize and reprioritize their work to ensure proper service delivery based on the patient needs. Addressing the working environment is also considered a significant concern and the author explains that, better working environments would enhance more quality nursing care.

The following are the review and summary for two scholarly resources on the primary nursing model.

Jost, S. G., Bonnell, M., Chacko, S. J., & Parkinson, D. L. (2010). Integrated primary nursing: A care delivery model for the 21st-century knowledge worker. Nursing administration quarterly, 34(3), 208-216.

Bonnell examines the various perceptions of a primary nursing model whereby he explains that in this model, only one nurse takes to care for the patient throughout the patient's stay at the hospital. He adds that the model is very efficient in tracking the patient's health progress as well as boosting the patient's confidence I undergoing the treatment. The nurse can incorporate his or her professional practices to keep the patient feel more comfortable and during their treatment.

Korhonen, A., & Kangasniemi, M. (2013). It's time for updating primary nursing in pediatric oncology care: Qualitative study highlighting the perceptions of nurses, physicians and parents. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 17(6), 732-738.

Korhonen examines the status of the primary nursing model in pediatric oncology care. He observes that the primary nursing care gives a lot of workload onto just one nurse who may get exhausted or bored with the continuous work with the same patient. According to Korhonen, the primary model would be more inconvenient especially where there are very many patients who demand personalized care.

In the primary nursing model, only a single nurse is used to deliver personalized care to patients for the full period the patient spends at the hospital. The nurse provides efficient and complete nursing care to some number of the inpatients in a hospital. The nurse gets the maximum opportunity to assess the patient very closely over time thereby, able to give the direct care which is needed by the patient. To completely deliver his work, the nurse may devote most of his time in providing care to the patient. However, the primary nurse shares the patient's progressive results with the other nurses on the staff.

The model which would be incorporated to improve the system is the progressive patient care model whereby, the patient is moved to various levels I hospital where their type of needs can be addressed most appropriately. The progressive patient care ensures that every patient receives the right medication on the right bed and at the right time thereby, improving the quality of healthcare. It is a patient-sensitive model which aims at improving patients' experience during treatment.

There is a fantastic experience in knowing the nursing care models. It gives the students a wide range of experience and hands-on skills to apply the most appropriate model during their nursing practice. It is also a rich source of information for the acquisition of basic management skills because it deals with the decision making process including the decisions for the allocation of the facility resources. As a result, great amounts of knowledge are accrued.

References

Korhonen, A., & Kangasniemi, M. (2013). It's time for updating primary nursing in pediatric oncology care: Qualitative study highlighting the perceptions of nurses, physicians and parents. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 17(6), 732-738.

Jost, S. G., Bonnell, M., Chacko, S. J., & Parkinson, D. L. (2010). Integrated primary nursing: A care delivery model for the 21st-century knowledge worker. Nursing administration quarterly, 34(3), 208-216.

Ferguson, L., & Cioffi, J. (2011). Team nursing: experiences of nurse managers in acute care settings. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(4), 5-11.

Fairbrother, G., Jones, A., & Rivas, K. (2010). Changing model of nursing care from individual patient allocation to team nursing in the acute inpatient environment. Contemporary Nurse, 35(2), 202-220.