Care planning is an essential part of healthcare, but is often misunderstood or regarded as a waste of time. Without a specific document delineating the plan of care, important issues are likely to be neglected. Care planning provides a “road map” of sorts, to guide all who are involved with a patient/resident's care.
The care plan has long been associated with nursing, and many people believe that it is the sole domain of nurses. To be effective and comprehensive, the care planning process must involve all disciplines that are involved in the care of the patient/resident.
Nursing care plans are an essential part of nursing practice that provide a written means of planning patient care and discharging plan based upon nursing diagnosis. Nursing care plans functions as a means of communicating patient care needs between members of the nursing team to ensure those needs are met. Written nursing care plans also serve as a means to document changes in patient’s condition, adjustments or additions to nursing diagnosis, as well as patient responses to nursing or medical treatment. Nursing care plans enable nurses to provide a holistic approach to patient needs both while hospitalized and after discharge.
Nursing care plans must always be individualized for each patient’s needs. It would be better if nurse staffing ratios would allow nurses adequate time to sit at a desk and utilize their expertise to create a complete admission to discharge and home care plan after careful review of patient history, medical records, physical assessment, and applicable nursing diagnosis. We live in an imperfect world however and nurses do not have adequate time to research each patient’s history and needs and write a comprehensive plan of care from scratch for each patient during their hectic shift. Understaffed nurses try to keep up, but when time is short mistakes happen more easily and some aspects of the nursing care plan may be omitted. Stock care plans, care plan software, and nursing care plan books are useful as reference tools to help ensure potential problems associated with their particular patient are not overlooked during the nursing care planning process.
The ultimate purpose of nursing care plans is to guide all who are involved in the care of this person to provide the appropriate treatment in order to ensure the optimal outcome during his/ her stay in our healthcare setting. A caregiver unfamiliar with the patient/resident should be able to find all the information needed to care for this person in the care plan.
It is important to design nursing care plans that provide adequate safety to the patient, make things less distressing to the family, and utilizes resources appropriately.
Rabu, 07 Januari 2009
Neonatal Nursing Is It For you
If you are to describe the role of a nurse in our lives, many would say a lot of nice things about it. But, no matter how much you give your best, you just can’t seem to please everybody, right? In the case of neonatal nursing, a nurse care is unquestionably priceless!
Neonatal nursing includes several responsibilities besides providing care for helpless little angels. Before going to the roles of a neonatal nurse, let us first know who they are working with. Neonatal nurses actually work within neonatal units, which can be within maternity or children’s hospitals, or in the community.
Neonatal nurse look after new born babies who are born pre-mature or sick. There’s more
to neonatal nursing than just looking after for new born babies. There could be varied
problems that can affect the health of a newly born baby. And with that in mind,
immediate treatment is required from specialists who work within the multidisciplinary
healthcare team.
Premature babies are not like any other infants with certain illnesses as they have particular problems that need to be looked into as soon as possible. Health problems are commonly encountered when a baby is born earlier than expected, such as respiratory difficulties. A problem in respiratory system to new born babies can be life threatening if not given immediate and appropriate treatment by a specialist team. In addition to that, the nutritional needs of the prematurely born babies greatly require a specialist attention.
The scope of responsibilities of neonatal nursing does not end in caring for babies, but also being supportive to the parents who are worried about how their baby is faring with any complication. In fact, neonatal nurses play an important role in providing understanding and assurance to the parents, who are going through emotional and mental stress over the condition of their baby. For good parent and baby bonding, the parents and other members of the family are encouraged to take an active part in the care of the baby while in the hospital.
If you think you have a soft spot for babies, excellent interpersonal skills, empathetic understanding for the parents and other family members, among other things, then neonatal nursing could be the right career for you. Do you think you can do what neonatal nurses can? If your answer is yes, then you have now a clearer picture of where your feet should take you in order to create a career.
Neonatal nursing includes several responsibilities besides providing care for helpless little angels. Before going to the roles of a neonatal nurse, let us first know who they are working with. Neonatal nurses actually work within neonatal units, which can be within maternity or children’s hospitals, or in the community.
Neonatal nurse look after new born babies who are born pre-mature or sick. There’s more
to neonatal nursing than just looking after for new born babies. There could be varied
problems that can affect the health of a newly born baby. And with that in mind,
immediate treatment is required from specialists who work within the multidisciplinary
healthcare team.
Premature babies are not like any other infants with certain illnesses as they have particular problems that need to be looked into as soon as possible. Health problems are commonly encountered when a baby is born earlier than expected, such as respiratory difficulties. A problem in respiratory system to new born babies can be life threatening if not given immediate and appropriate treatment by a specialist team. In addition to that, the nutritional needs of the prematurely born babies greatly require a specialist attention.
The scope of responsibilities of neonatal nursing does not end in caring for babies, but also being supportive to the parents who are worried about how their baby is faring with any complication. In fact, neonatal nurses play an important role in providing understanding and assurance to the parents, who are going through emotional and mental stress over the condition of their baby. For good parent and baby bonding, the parents and other members of the family are encouraged to take an active part in the care of the baby while in the hospital.
If you think you have a soft spot for babies, excellent interpersonal skills, empathetic understanding for the parents and other family members, among other things, then neonatal nursing could be the right career for you. Do you think you can do what neonatal nurses can? If your answer is yes, then you have now a clearer picture of where your feet should take you in order to create a career.
Mental Health Nursing
We are now living in a world where people seem to have an open mind about almost anything. But, why is it that, at some point, certain individuals still find it easier to talk about and accept a person being physically ill than someone who has mental health problems? There could be many reasons behind that life-size question mark on your forehead. To some extent, this could be the result of the impossibility of putting a clear distinction between mental health and illness.
At some point in our lives, we may have experienced episodes of stress, anxiety, anger, depression and any other mental health condition, because those are what make us human. In other words, these mental problems are as common as cough and colds. But, if any of those conditions becomes overwhelming, hard to control, or has been recurring for quite some time, it’s the time that you seek professional help. If you let your condition pass by without getting immediate attention and care, it could lead to a more serious problem, not to mention that it gets in the way of your daily activities.
This is where mental health nursing steps in. Mental health nursing is a very challenging job, I must say. The nurses working in a mental health institutions, whether in a hospital or in a community, show great care for people with mental health condition, assisting patients to overcome their unwell condition or to come to terms with it so that they can continue to live their lives as normal as possible.
Mental health nursing is the kind of profession in which the nurses are likely to be dealing with people from all walks of life with different backgrounds. As their experience broadened and careers develop, they have a choice to specialize in any areas like alcohol and drugs, research, education, or management positions. But the important challenges for mental health nurses are to use their skills and personal strengths in order to help patients come to terms with their problems. Have you noticed that sometimes you tend to feel more comfortable sharing your concerns with nurses than with physicians? That is exactly why mental health nursing exist – fill in the gap between the physician and the patient!
Another challenge that a mental health nurse has to face is to identify if and when a patient may be at risk of harming themselves or other people. Therefore, one of the most important skills that mental health nurses have to learn is recognizing any build-up tension in a patient and resolving it as quickly as possible. What a challenging career mental health nursing indeed! Not a very enticing job, but definitely very rewarding. You must be a people person with great care to people with mental illness to be able to do the job of a mental health nurse.
At some point in our lives, we may have experienced episodes of stress, anxiety, anger, depression and any other mental health condition, because those are what make us human. In other words, these mental problems are as common as cough and colds. But, if any of those conditions becomes overwhelming, hard to control, or has been recurring for quite some time, it’s the time that you seek professional help. If you let your condition pass by without getting immediate attention and care, it could lead to a more serious problem, not to mention that it gets in the way of your daily activities.
This is where mental health nursing steps in. Mental health nursing is a very challenging job, I must say. The nurses working in a mental health institutions, whether in a hospital or in a community, show great care for people with mental health condition, assisting patients to overcome their unwell condition or to come to terms with it so that they can continue to live their lives as normal as possible.
Mental health nursing is the kind of profession in which the nurses are likely to be dealing with people from all walks of life with different backgrounds. As their experience broadened and careers develop, they have a choice to specialize in any areas like alcohol and drugs, research, education, or management positions. But the important challenges for mental health nurses are to use their skills and personal strengths in order to help patients come to terms with their problems. Have you noticed that sometimes you tend to feel more comfortable sharing your concerns with nurses than with physicians? That is exactly why mental health nursing exist – fill in the gap between the physician and the patient!
Another challenge that a mental health nurse has to face is to identify if and when a patient may be at risk of harming themselves or other people. Therefore, one of the most important skills that mental health nurses have to learn is recognizing any build-up tension in a patient and resolving it as quickly as possible. What a challenging career mental health nursing indeed! Not a very enticing job, but definitely very rewarding. You must be a people person with great care to people with mental illness to be able to do the job of a mental health nurse.
Critical Care Nursing
If you are to describe the job of a nurse, what comes to mind first? For some people, they would probably think that a nurse is someone who provides the care you need when being hospitalized, while other would see a nurse as someone who works side by side with physicians in providing care. There could be truth on those answers, but there is actually more to nursing than just giving care to patients. And if you think you have seen what a nurse can do, better think again.
There is this specialty within nursing that deals specifically with human responses to life-threatening situations and that is critical care nursing. As the name implies, critical care nursing is indeed a serious job that requires all your skills to be able to save the lives of those people who are in a life-threatening condition. As a critical care nurse, you should be a licensed professional nurse who is responsible in making sure that acutely and critically ill patients as well as their parents receive the best possible care.
To get a clearer picture as to how grave critical care nursing is, let us define what a critically ill patient is. Critically ill patient is someone who is at high risk for actual or potential life-threatening health condition. The more serious the condition of the patient is, the more extremely vulnerable, unstable, and complex he or she becomes and the more extreme and watchful nursing care is required. Being in a situation like that, where there’s no room for errors, it is just right to get the right training and exposure to obtain the skills needed to be able to respond to the specific needs of critically ill patients.
Critical care nursing are given in the hospital setting where critically ill patients are being treated and where the real action is, such as in the intensive care units, cardiac catheter labs, telemetry units or ICUs, pediatric intensive care units, neonatal ICUs, cardiac care units, progressive care units, emergency departments and recovery rooms. In addition, critically care nursing can also be provided in home healthcare, managed care organizations, outpatient surgery centers and clinic, and nursing schools.
Because critical care nursing requires stern expertise, critical care nurses have gone through an intensive practice in settings where patients need complex assessment, high-intensity therapies and intervention, and continue nursing care. With constant exposure to these situations, a critical care nurse will be able to work in different settings. They can be bedside clinicians, nurse educators, nurse researchers, clinical nurse specialists, nurse managers, and nurse practitioners. With the arrival of managed care and the resulting transfer of patients from hospital settings to healthcare institutions, critical care nursing is more in demand.
There is this specialty within nursing that deals specifically with human responses to life-threatening situations and that is critical care nursing. As the name implies, critical care nursing is indeed a serious job that requires all your skills to be able to save the lives of those people who are in a life-threatening condition. As a critical care nurse, you should be a licensed professional nurse who is responsible in making sure that acutely and critically ill patients as well as their parents receive the best possible care.
To get a clearer picture as to how grave critical care nursing is, let us define what a critically ill patient is. Critically ill patient is someone who is at high risk for actual or potential life-threatening health condition. The more serious the condition of the patient is, the more extremely vulnerable, unstable, and complex he or she becomes and the more extreme and watchful nursing care is required. Being in a situation like that, where there’s no room for errors, it is just right to get the right training and exposure to obtain the skills needed to be able to respond to the specific needs of critically ill patients.
Critical care nursing are given in the hospital setting where critically ill patients are being treated and where the real action is, such as in the intensive care units, cardiac catheter labs, telemetry units or ICUs, pediatric intensive care units, neonatal ICUs, cardiac care units, progressive care units, emergency departments and recovery rooms. In addition, critically care nursing can also be provided in home healthcare, managed care organizations, outpatient surgery centers and clinic, and nursing schools.
Because critical care nursing requires stern expertise, critical care nurses have gone through an intensive practice in settings where patients need complex assessment, high-intensity therapies and intervention, and continue nursing care. With constant exposure to these situations, a critical care nurse will be able to work in different settings. They can be bedside clinicians, nurse educators, nurse researchers, clinical nurse specialists, nurse managers, and nurse practitioners. With the arrival of managed care and the resulting transfer of patients from hospital settings to healthcare institutions, critical care nursing is more in demand.
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