Management Issues of the New Protocols: Analysis and Recommendations
Providing the nursing care of the finest quality is only possible once the roles and responsibilities are distributed in a sensible manner among the staff. Even though nurses’ responsibilities vary depending on the area of expertise, the boundaries between the range of duties for a nurse and a doctor had been quite distinct up until new protocols were introduced.
The recent change in the regulations blurred the line between a nurse and a therapist, therefore, leading to conflicts in the workplace. With the discord in the relationships between a nurse and a doctor, the provision of high-quality services to the patients becomes a challenge. As a result, an inevitable drop in the nurses’ performance quality ensues (Begley et al., 2013).
The criterion of the patient’s wellbeing and satisfaction must be the primary reason for guiding the actions of the manager. Furthermore, the latter must create opportunities for a comfortable workplace environment for nurses and physicians alike. Finally, improving the quality of the nursing services has to be the driving factor behind the choices made by the manager. In other words, a manager must devise the solution that will keep all parties satisfied, i.e., use the flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities between a nurse and a doctor to the advantage of all participants involved.
To address the problem, one might consider the duplication of roles. Since doctors may feel that nurses encroach their territory, a flexible tool for resolving conflicts and carrying out negotiations must be used. For instance, the importance of the nursing ethics, which implies striving for the patient’s benefit and, therefore, joining forces to identify the best solution possible, should be viewed as an opportunity (White & Griffith, 2010).
Clinical Measurement in an HCO Office of Quality Management
Introducing clinical measurement (CM) tools in the context of HCO is crucial to improving the overall quality levels as far as the performance of the HCO staff is concerned. Among the essential effects of the CM tools usage, a significant reduction in the clinical error rate needs to be mentioned. As a result, a range of threats to the patient’s wellbeing will be mitigated once the appropriate tools for CM are incorporated into the set of a nurse’s inventory.
Furthermore, the application of the CM tools in the nursing environment is likely to create prerequisites for the design of clinical information models (Uysal & Ozcan, 2012). At this point, the gravity of using an appropriate data management strategy in the HCO environment needs to be mentioned. Unless the methods of accurate and expeditious information transfer are incorporated into the nursing practice, successful delivery of high-quality services is impossible. Therefore, providing the foundation for the creation of a comprehensive model for managing the information flow can be viewed as one of the most important effects of using CM tools.
Applying the concept of clinical measurement to real-life scenarios, one should mention that its adoption will lead to an improvement in the diagnosing process. The adoption of CM tools will entail a much more accurate assessment of the patient’s current health status, the identification of the essential symptoms, and, ultimately, the provision of a precise diagnosis (Packham, Fok, Frederiksen, Thabane, & Buckley, 2012).
Lessons in Hospitality from the Hotel Industry for Nursing
Even though the concept of customer satisfaction has recently become the principal one in the business environment, the nursing realm still lacks a proper understanding of its significance. Therefore, HCO is currently in dire need to reconsider the existing attitudes toward the provision of the corresponding services. At present, the primary focus must be on meeting the unique needs of customers by considering the specifics of their cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds (Giger, 2016).
Furthermore, the overall attitude toward patients must be altered in the present-day nursing environment by reinforcing the significance of ethics and moral values as the basis for decision-making. For example, the Biblical passage about the importance of hospitality needs to be taken into account when shaping the existing strategy of tending to the needs of customers. The devotion to patients and the nursing ethics as promoted in the excerpt mentioned above has to be viewed as the key to improving the current service quality: “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you” (The Bible. New International Version, 2011, John 3:1). The shift in a more responsible attitude toward building the environment for improving the patients’ wellbeing must be facilitated. The process can be reinforced by introducing a set of rigid ethical standards and moral values that nurses will have to learn to accept in order to deliver the services of the required quality.
The principles of hospitality are to be incorporated into the current nursing environment so that smooth social interactions between the patients and the nurses could become a possibility. By changing the landscape of the communication process between a nurse and a customer, one is likely to build the foundation for a patient-centered approach. Consequently, a more diligent accomplishment of the essential goals and, thus, an impressive reduction in the number of risks will be observed.
References
Begley, C., Elliott, N., Lalor, J., Coyne, I., Higgins, A., & Comiskey, C. M. (2013). Differences between clinical specialist and advanced practitioner clinical practice, leadership, and research roles, responsibilities, and perceived outcomes (the SCAPE study). Journal of Advanced Nursing, 69(6), 1323–1337.
The Bible. New International Version. (2011). London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton.
Giger, J. N. (2016). Transcultural nursing: Assessment and intervention. New York, NY: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Packham, T. L., Fok, D., Frederiksen, K., Thabane, L., & Buckley, N. (2012). Reliability of infrared thermometric measurements of skin temperature in the hand. Journal of Hand Therapy, 25(4), 358-361.
Uysal, H., & Ozcan, S. (2012). The effect of individual training and counselling programme for patients with myocardial infarction over patients’ quality of life. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 18(5), 445-453.
White, K. R., & Griffith, J. R. (2010). The well-managed healthcare organization. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.