Patient Advocacy Essay

As a Registered Nurse is a crucial component to ensure that there is effective communication between the nurse and patient. As well as being respectful to the person’s dignity, culture, values, beliefs and rights. This is because everyone is different, and due to this it is important that I am being cautious to each person’s individual needs.

It’s the nurse's duty to advocate for her patient and to make sure that the patient understands and ask questions if necessary.

As nurses we accept the responsibility of caring for the patient therefore, we have to be hold accountable for the care that we provide. It is important for nurses to use their own judgment in accepting responsibility, when to seek consultation and when and what to delegate to others. According to Battie & Steelam “prospective nurse should hold themselves accountable for patient advocacy, continuity of care, lifelong learning, to colleagues, the nursing profession, and their organization.

Not all patients are capable of independently identifying and articulate their care needs, so the nurse also adapts the role as an advocate. Clarity and continuity in a trusting environment enables good communication. Progressive identification of needs takes place as nurse and patient communicate with one another in the interpersonal relationship (Peplau 1988, p. 84). Being considerate to the needs and vulnerability of patients is a moral attribute, as nurses are accountable for the care they deliver.

In Nursing, there will always be instances where the patient's nurse needs to advocate for their patient. There are numerous reasons why a nurse would advocate for their patient ranging from getting the doctor to change the patient’s orders, helping the patient’s treatment team understand what it is the patient is requiring for the day, to expressing the patient’s last wishes before death. In every situation, the nurse should do what is in the patient’s best interest. Tomajan (2012), “Advocacy skills are the ability to successfully support a cause or interest on one’s own behalf or that of another. Advocacy requires a set of skills that include problem solving, communication, influence, and collaboration”(p. 2). With those skills, the

Advocating for patients is a key part of nursing. Working in the emergency department, I meet people from all different walks of life, who are sometimes not able to fend or stand up for themselves. As a nurse, it is my job to advocate for them and make sure that they receive the care that they need. . Recently I had a patient who was in pain and was shy to ask for pain management. I advocated for this patient by going to the doctor and requesting pain management for this patient. By recognizing the signs of pain in my patient and having a good form of communication with the doctor, I was able to provide my patient with quick and appropriate care.

emerge as a professional entity until the beginning of the 20th century, with the progress in biomedical science. Since then, the

A nurse is given an opportunity to help patients, either if its by helping them through a very serious sickness or just helping a patient get to the bathroom on time, or a time when happiness is overfilling the room and a child is being born. Registered nurses provide a wide variety of patient care services (Mitchell, p.12). A Nurse must always know where to begin and where to stop, as any other career in the health field there is always something that cannot be done by everyone but only the certified person, a nurse must always remain inside her scope of practice to prevent any misunderstandings. A nurse must also follow a code of ethics , the code of ethics of the American Association of Medical Assistants states that a nurse should at all times render service with full respect and dignity of humanity, respect confidential information obtained by a patients file, uphold the honor and high principles the profession and accept its discipline, and last but not least always want to improve her services to better serve the health and well being of the community. (Mitchell, p.65).

Was the patient’s best interest at heart? Or was the physician trying to avoid a negative outcome? This is where collaboration among healthcare teams is vital to patient care and upholding patient wishes. Ultimately it is a nurse’s responsibility to advocate for the patient not only in respecting their wishes but communicating all available knowledge so that all parties involved can make and educated decision.

Not all nurses go into the profession with leadership ideas. The nursing profession must produce leaders throughout the health care system. Leaders must function as workers, and administrators with leadership qualities, while still meeting their budgets and running effective units with high functioning and happy staff members. They need to trouble shoot necessary and work with the medical faculty while pleasing their staff and the administers.

Westmount Nursing Inc. is a for profit chain with seven different nursing homes. It has a grown from a small few bed facility to a facility with 4 different divisions that made to help make seniors more independent. The Westmount Nursing Homes were in search for a chief executive officer and president, which was filled by Shirley Carpenter. After Shirley Carpenter came on to the company, many changes were made and implemented. Some implementations were successfully, but she was also challenged with many problems with the Union Federation of Nurses and the Board of directors regarding wages and total quality management implementation. My recommendation would be for Shirley to stop the implementation of total quality management and focus on

Nursing is a profession that provides quality and culturally sensitive care to help a patient achieve the highest quality of life possible. A nurse utilizes skills (technical, cognitive, and interpersonal) that promote all aspects of health. There are many components to nursing. “The primary objectives of the nurse as caregiver are to promote health, to prevent illness, to restore health, and to facilitate coping with illness, disability, or death” (Taylor, Lillis, & Lynn, 2015, p. 43). A nurse recognizes the worth of all people and understands the importance of doing what is best for the patient. A competent nurse builds a relationship with the patient that is the perfect balance between professionalism and treating the patient like family. Nursing installs hope in a patient while at the same time being realistic about a patient’s condition. Another aspect of nursing includes empowering a patient to feel confident and comfortable in making

When it comes to patient care, nurses play a critical role in the health care system that is simply just not replaceable. As Maya Angelou says, “they may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Nurses interact so closely with patients every day and spend the most time with them and their families. But nursing not only involves delivering care, it also involves patient advocacy. Demonstrating advocacy in nursing practice is necessary for providing effective care because it allows for development of a strong nurse-patient interpersonal relationship, which is needed to support the patient and promote healing. Nurses can demonstrate advocacy to help enhance this relationship by helping protect patient privacy, speaking

While providing safe care, nurses are also taught to be an advocate for their patients. To be an

According to Healthy People 2012 there are more then 800,000 new cases of diabetes each year, with the numbers on the rise. With this in mind, Healthy People 2012 has identified diabetes as their number five focus area. In order to reach their goal of improving the quality of life for people with diabetes they have identified diabetes teaching as their number one objective. Furthermore, in order to reduce the number of complications of diabetes, Healthy People 2012 has identified foot ulcers as their ninth objective. Through patient education Healthy People 2012 hopes to reduce the number of foot ulcers in people with diabetes, as diabetes is the number one cause of nontraumatic amputations in the United States. In order to