Research Paper on Nursing Profession: Challenges & Quality Care Amidst Healthcare Facilities

Introduction

Healthcare facilities' main ambition is the deliverance of quality services leading to patient satisfaction and wellbeing. However, to achieve such an objective, there is a need for collaborative interdisciplinary team members. Nurses play a critical role in the healthcare industry by providing adequate care to patients. Nonetheless, the nursing profession has its challenges such as staffing, compensation, workplace violence, long working hours that limit their capability to enhance quality care to patients regularly (Odom-Forren, 2011). There is a need for profound changes in the designing of health systems to address the difficulties experienced by nurses in healthcare centers. Therefore, core competencies such as delivering patient-centered care as members of a multidisciplinary team, deploying quality improvement strategies, emphasizing evidence-based practice, and utilizing informatics are desired for health care professionals (William L., 2010). The reason being is that patients have numerous encounters with interdisciplinary team members, in which the encounters have to leave patients satisfied with the provision of care, which subsequently leads to health improvement.

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Three Challenges Nurses Face Today In Care Delivery

Workplace Violence

Health care is surprisingly a hazardous occupation, but not all dangers come from blood borne pathogens or substance exposures. One of the greatest threats is workplace violence. It consists of any physically and psychologically detrimental acts that arise within the health care setting toward a workforce member. This involves direct physical attacks, written or verbal threats. According to Edward et al. (2014), workplace violence against nurses have a physical and psychological impact on them. Nurses who encounter any form of aggression are likely to experience anger, frustration, depression, and anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even contemplate leaving the nursing profession. The mental instability brought about by way of violent crimes inclusive of depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders can bring about extreme cases, if not addressed, also result in loss of life. These instances need professional psychiatric or psychological help. For example, an estimate of around 10% of victims of workplace violence are afflicted by relentlessly incapacitating psychological damage, and about 40% suffer from sensitive distress, which is severe enough to need mental health treatment beyond initial counseling, which is what is not accomplished in most instances.

According to Martinelli (2012) ascertain that nurses should be subjected to training programs that enlighten them on ways to manage workplace violence in their health care settings. Nursing practitioners should use evidence-based practices in their health care integrations to improve their collaboration towards a mutual understanding. The use of evidence-based care enables health practitioners to understand and address workplace violence with an explicit and qualitative approach. For a health care organization to plan enlightening activities and strategies for using EBP in their mutual understanding, the initial and critical step is to gather information on EBP practices and associated attributes depending on the organizational level.

Bullying and Harassment

Nurses, as well as experience bullying and harassment in the workplace. According to Edward et al. (2014), 80% of nurses mentioned that they had been harassed by patients, which compared to 41% of other interdisciplinary team members. Harassment, in this scenario, was defined as persistent attempts at communication, patient stalking, and inappropriate social media contact. Similarly, according to Dilman ( 2015), 67% of nurses ascertained that they have had individual experience with verbal or physical abuse on the job, and one in three have mentioned that they have been physically abused at the workplace. Bullying and harassment also take amongst nurses. According to Kvas and Seljak (2014), 49% of nurses have been verbally harassed or bullied by other nursing practitioners. There is a need for a climate of mutual respect to reducing violence in the workplace. Respect plays an integral role in their nurses' mutual understanding. Healthcare has to develop strategies that ensure nurses entrust and respect one another regardless of their hierarchical levels. Henceforth, health care organization should evaluate their employees to enhance transparency, openness, diversity, and fairness within the corporation. The success of the organization depends on the corporate emphasis on mutual respect towards its workers. Lanza et al. (2019) ascertain that nurse managers should be tasked with creating the availability and inclusion of proper training channels that would help the nursing staff to prevent and efficiently manage workplace violence incidences.

Workplace Hazards

Nurses experience many workplace hazards daily while doing their jobs. Some of these hazards include injuries, blood borne pathogens, hand washing-related dermatitis, and flu germs. According to (Seto 2012), 4.4 million out of approximately 11.1 million employees in the healthcare industry and associated occupations are in jeopardy of occupational exposure to blood borne pathogens. Nurses experience more than 40,000 injuries involving hands, back, shoulders, and feet annually.

Consequently, aside from acute injuries, nursing practitioners have increased the chances of suffering harm to their hands. In that regard, protecting nurses goes beyond their efforts. Healthcare centers and health systems can formulate initiatives to protect their workforce, which includes providing extra measures for those nurses who do not receive the vaccination for individuals or religious purposes. Additionally, nurses need to wear an antiviral face mask, which is researched to inactivate or kill 99.99% of laboratory-evaluated flu viruses (Odom-Forren, 2011). Health care organizations should ensure that each nurse is a leader in his or her way. The organization empowers nurses to report inappropriate behavior even if conducted by an individual in a higher hierarchical status. Likewise, the company organizes team-building activities aimed at promoting unity and enhances diversity appreciation among colleagues during the recreational forums. Organizations that encourage mutual respect among workers improve communication between them, reduce stress as peace in the workplace soars, and improve teamwork.

Institute of Medicine 2010 Future of Nursing Report

In the nursing report, one of the critical messages is that nurses should practice to the full extent of their education and training. All registered nurses are obliged to work proficiently in their interaction with patients, irrespective of their specialty, or role in health care systems as part of their standard of practice (Odom-Forren, 2011). The American Nurses Association (ANA) entails standards of practices and performances for all professional nurses. Registered nurses must go through extensive training before embarking on any nursing role to ensure the provision of quality care to all patients (William L., 2010). The reason being is that registered nurses should be able to maintain their knowledge and competence in their area of practice.

Additionally, nurses are required to finish a certain degree of clinical training units before renewing their licenses, which enables nurses to maintain their competencies and skills updated. Evidence-based practice settings, patients are likely to have tremendous effects when those skills and sequencing are applied during nursing intervention activities (Harvey & Kitson, 2015). Consequently, practice placing enables nurses to draw records from preceding educational instructions as they determine concerning their performance of their nursing practices.

Institute of Medicine's Five Core Competencies.

Patient-Centered Care

The first main competency is patient-centered care. It is imperative that nurses become aware of, appreciate, and care about patients' goals, variations, and values (William L., 2010). The cause being is that every affected person is exceptional, and for this reason, one kind of care does no longer applies to the relaxation of the patients. It is vital to set up an excellent rapport with the affected person's family and the rest of the interdisciplinary group members to satisfy the patient's health care goals. Moreover, there is a need for effective communication between nursing practitioners and patients when you consider that talk is a crucial part of entailing patient-targeted care. However, nurses revel in language obstacles due to the fact patients' hail from different cultural backgrounds and therefore speak impressive languages, which may include restriction communique. Yet, nurses can conquer these demanding situations by way of the use of interpretive offerings in the scientific setting, which may also enhance their expertise base on distinct types of languages.

Working in a Multidisciplinary Team

The second competency is working in an interdisciplinary team. A health care center is a complex institute that needs collaborative efforts between multidisciplinary team members, which include physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, among others. The team must work in collaboration to entail quality services to patients (William L., 2010). In that regard, multidisciplinary team education and practices are significant in achieving patient quality, care, and safety. There are different health training and continuing enlightening channels that can assist nurses in integrating with other members of the interdisciplinary team. However, working with a multidisciplinary team has its disadvantages as well because different members of the group may have distinct opinions on the provision of care to patients.

Evidence-Based Practice

The third competency is an evidence-based practice. Nursing is an ever-growing field with changing information and utilities in which nurses must learn and understand to use in practice. In that regard, there is a need for evidence-based practices that will equip and enlighten interdisciplinary team members such as nurses and physicians with the knowledge to deal with patients suffering from heart failures (William L., 2010). It would be ideal for reducing the increasing cases of readmission that are associated with the hospital.

Applying Quality Improvement

The application of quality improvement in the workplace is the fourth competency. Nursing practitioners must identify medical errors in their activities to ensure patient safety. Quality enhancement is a significant part of nursing in the provision of quality care to patients. It is the nurses' desire for patients to recover from ailments and resume their independence post-hospitalization (William L., 2010). However, changes to enhance quality care can be achieved through distinct types of surveys, which include mental health, general health, body pain, and social functioning. These types of patient surveys can health care administration make desired changes to improve patients' quality of care.

Utilizing Informatics

Utilizing informatics is the last core competency. Nursing informatics focuses on integrating nursing technology and technology to enhance patient care. Nursing informatics is a vital component of health care centers. It permits several healthcare records technologies to interpret, examine, and effectively use information (Hebda & Czar, 2013). The transfer of information in health care settings is vital to patients'' well-being because it addresses the need to enhance the quality of care received and improving health care efficiency (Seto, 2012). The aspect of nursing informatics will entail a positive impact on nursing practitioners. This is because it...