...Hand hygiene is a practise of evidence-based medicine and the number one way to prevent health-care associated infections (Garbutt, 2011). The term of hand hygiene applies to adequate hand washing, antiseptic hand-wash, antiseptic hand-rub, or surgical hand antisepsis (Garbutt, 2011). Evidence-based practices have been put into place to prevent such infections from occurring. The present paper will examine ways in which health professionals use the five steps of evidence based practices (EBP) to locate, appraise and apply the best available research evidence. In this case, the five steps of EBP will be assessed in conjunction to the practise of good hand hygiene. Liamputtong (2013, p.267) has explained evidence-based practise (EBP) as the use of the best research evidence, clinical expertise, available resources, and patient preferences in respect to clinical decision-making. EBP is taught and practised using five steps to reduce inconsistency and increase efficiency and effectiveness of health care (Liamputtong, 2013, p.267). According to Liamputtong (2013, p.267) the first step of EBP is to ask an answerable question stating the population, intervention, comparison and outcome of the question (PICO). Next, acquire the best available evidence using research strategies (Liamputtong, 2013, p.267). This evidence is then appraised to determine its quality and relevance (Liamputtong, 2013, p.267). The fourth step it to apply the evidence integrated with clinical expertise and...
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...Australia is supported by the Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia. This Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses sets the minimum standards for practice a professional person is expected to uphold both within and outside of professional domains in order to ensure the ‘good standing’ of the nursing profession. These two companion Codes, together with other published practice standards (e.g. competency standards, decisionmaking frameworks, guidelines and position statements), provide a framework for legally and professionally accountable and responsible nursing practice in all clinical, 2 management, education and research domains. The support and assistance of Royal College of Nursing (unified with The College of Nursing on 1 July 2012 to become Australian College of Nursing) and the Australian Nursing Federation in developing this edition of the Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia is acknowledged. In considering this Code and the Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia, it should be borne in mind that they are designed for multiple audiences: nurses; nursing students; people requiring or receiving nursing care; other health workers; the community generally; employers of nurses; nursing regulatory authorities; and consumer protection agencies. 4. Nurses respect the dignity, culture, ethnicity, values and beliefs of people receiving care and treatment, and of their...
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...Nursing communication 2 Nursing seems to be facing more various challenges as today. These include nurses’ shortages, communication, freeze of salary and many more. In this essay, communication in the nursing field-its importance and the impact on nursing practise will be explained. The impact communication has on the safety of the patients and quality of care they received will also be evaluated. Communication is the transfer of information between the nurse, the patient, the patient’s family and among other health workers in the team (Anderson L, L 2013). Communication in general include verbal and written, information are exchanged in form of written and spoken language. Non-verbal communication involves exchange of information without using words, sometimes known as body language, which simplifies understanding of complex meanings of the spoken word. This also includes touch and sight (Weimann & Giles, 1988). Communication in it various forms is a keystone of basic nursing practice and an essential skill across all settings of care to identify the patient's goals of care. The importance of effective communication is vital in all aspect of nursing that is why I have chosen it as a major challenge facing nurses today. The implications of communication deficiencies impact the whole nursing practice. From clinical assessment, attention to physical symptoms and psychosocial concerns of the patients are only achieved through effective communication. The responses to suffering...
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...section. You will need to select one sociological theory which is relevant to your chosen issue, state the main ideas of this theory, and explain how effective the theory is in helping to understand the chosen issue. Conclusion Provide a minimum 200-word summary which explains how health sociology theory provides a different way of making sense of the organisation of health care. ISSUE DESCRIPTION The rise of nurse practitioners concerns the extension of some aspects of nursing practise to incorporate tasks once only performed by doctors. The issue here is whether the rise of the nurse practitioner role improves the agency and professional status of nursing, and the extent to which it is resisted by doctors as a challenge to their clinical autonomy. Nurse practitioners fall under the category of advanced practise nurses. The Australian nursing and midwifery council (ANMC) has proposed the following broad definition of advanced practice nursing: “Advanced practice nursing defines a level of nursing practice that utilises extended and expanded skills,experience and knowledge in assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation of the care required. Nurses practising at this level are educationally prepared at post-graduate...
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...1 Introduction Te Kaunihera Tapuhi o Aotearoa/The Nursing Council of New Zealand (‘the Council’) under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (‘the Act’) is the responsible authority that governs the practice of nurses. The principle purpose of the Act is to protect the health and safety of members of the public by providing mechanisms to ensure health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their professions. The Council sets and monitors standards in the interests of the public and the profession. The Council’s primary concern is public safety. This Code outlines the standards of ethical conduct set by the Council under section 118(i) of the Act. This Code complements the legal obligations that nurses have under the Act, the Health and Disability Commissioner (Code of Health and Disability Services Nursing Council of New Zealand, PO Box 9644, Wellington 6011 www.nursingcouncil.org.nz Published June 2012 The Code of Conduct for nurses has been revised and rewritten. This document replaces the previous Code of Conduct for nurses published by the Nursing Council of New Zealand between 1995 and 2011. © Consumers’ Rights) Regulations 1996 and the Health Information Privacy Code 1994. The Act and Code of Rights can be found at http://www.legislation.govt.nz The Code of Conduct for nurses is a set of standards defined by the Council describing the behaviour or conduct that nurses are expected to uphold. The Code of Conduct provides guidance on appropriate...
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...National competency standards for the registered nurse Introduction • • returning to work after breaks in service, or • National competency standards for registered nurses were first adopted by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (ANMC) in the early 1990s. The ANMC was a peak national and midwifery organisation established in 1992 to develop a national approach to nursing and midwifery regulation. The ANMC worked in conjunction with the state and territory nursing and midwifery authorities (NMRAs) to produce national standards – an integral component of the regulatory framework – to help nurses and midwives deliver safe and competent care. educated overseas seeking to work in Australia involved in professional conduct matters. The National Board may also apply the competency standards in order to communicate to consumers the standards that they can expect from nurses. Universities also use the standards when developing nursing curricula, and to assess student and new graduate performance. The ANMC officially became the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) on 24 November 2010. The name change reflected ANMC’s appointment as the independent accrediting authority for the nursing and midwifery professions under the new National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the National Scheme) that came into effect on 1 July 2010 (18 October 2010 in Western Australia). These are YOUR standards — developed...
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...Pharmacology is the study of the physical, biological and chemical actions of drugs (Bryant & Knights, 2011). In the practice of medicine, drugs are used to diagnose, treat or prevent disease so for the registered nurse in a clinical setting, the knowledge of pharmacology plays a huge importance in their role of medication administration. Pharmacology knowledge allows the nurse to carry out safe medication administration, monitor medication actions, educate patients, and act legally and ethically within the pharmacological parameters. This knowledge is also vital for the nurse practititioner in their role of nurse prescribing. Pharmacology plays a huge part in these roles for the nurse. This essay below will elaborate on the importance of pharmacology for the five reasons of safe medication administration, monitoring of medication actions, patient education, legal and ethical aspects of pharmacology and the nurse practitioner. Firstly, safe medication administration. To administer drugs safely it is the nurse’s responsibility to have knowledge of the prescribed medications as well as their therapeutic and non therapeutic effects. Knowledge of the medications include, knowing its approved drug name and classification, correct dose and route of administration. A medication may have as many as three different names- a chemical name, a generic (proprietary) name and a trade name (Crisp & Taylor, 2011). A chemical name refers to the chemical makeup of a drug, a generic name is the...
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...The relationship between nursing and society The profession of nursing has had a unique and enduring relationship with society over time. In 830 CE, the first account of nursing in the Muslim world was noted at the Qayrawan Hospital in Tunisia (Syed, 1993). For most people, Florence Nightingale is known as the first person truly recognized worldwide as a nurse. She based her belief in nursing as the act of placing the human body in the best condition possible to heal and be nurtured. She saw caring and respect for human beings as a universal need regardless of their status in society (Nightingale, 1859). Yet nursing often has a difficult relationship with society due to its social status and lack of professional identity. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there is a severe worldwide shortage of nurses and midwives in countries where the status of nurses is low and the burden of disease is growing daily (WHO, 2006). The lack of nurses within many societies makes understanding of their value and contributions much more difficult as they are not truly able to practise professional nursing. The International Council of Nurses (ICN), a federation of national nurses associations representing nurses in more than 128 counties, recognizes that nursing must create a professional identity within each culture in order to truly meet their social responsibility. ICN’s (2007) vision is to lead societies towards better health and that all nurses should “harness the knowledge...
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...Health promotion gives emphasis on the actual definition of health, that is not only just lack of disease, but also physical, mental and social well being. Health promotion provides new information and teachings to individuals, families and societies. It enhances the family unity and community engagements; it brings positive contributions to their health status. According to world health organization (WHO, 2012), health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. There is a broad range for health promotion, it is about developing healthy conditions in people's everyday life. This paper briefs health promotion, its significance in practice of nursing, roles and responsibilities of nurses in health promotion, in different areas of nursing the implementation of health practices incorporating health promotion in three different levels. Total well-being of people is the core of health promotion. The basic element for this is a healthy balanced life style, this can be achieved through proper education and awareness programmes to public and the community. Health education aims to make people to be aware and alert of the diseases and the contributing factors, importance of health check-up at least yearly, screening programmes, vaccinations, and to take precautions when subjected to communicable diseases. Encourage the public to maintain the cardinal habits of healthy life styles which include exercises, healthy and balanced diet,...
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...practitioners. It introduced a new process whereby health professionals are required to demonstrate competence annually in their scope of practice before they are issued with an annual practicing certificateHealth Practitioners Competence Assurance Act,2005) Important key protections are in place, with provisions that will ensure that: * only the health practitioners who are registered under the new Act will be able to use the titles protected by the Act or claim to practice a profession that is regulated by the Act * registered health practitioners will not be permitted to practise outside their own scopes of practice * regulatory authorities will be required to certify that a practitioner is fit for registration in all aspects. * certain activities will be restricted and will only be able to be performed by registered health practitioners (. Ministry of Health – Manatū Hauora, 2012) NURSING SCOPE OF PRACTICE UNDER THE HEALTH...
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...THE FUTURE OF NURSING: LEADING CHANGE, ADVANCING HEALTH Introduction Studies show that the nursing profession cover most of the workforce in the health sector, and they are mainly served with the responsibility of acting as patients’ advocates as well as defining the care that is to be provided to ailing patients (Hamric, Spross and Hanson 21). Nurses mainly work on the frontline of patient care, and they tend to play a significant role in realizing the objectives formulated in the in the 2010 Affordable Care Act and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative (RWJFI) in collaboration with the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which define the need to change and advance healthcare (Initiative on the Future of Nursing n.d). Therefore, as much as there is a need to restructure the current healthcare, it is important to first address issues that interfere with the provision of quality and evidenced healthcare. To promote changes and advance health, the IOM report recommends nurses to practice to the full extent of their education, achieve higher levels of education and training through improved education process, and nurse to be involved in decision making processes touching on healthcare (Institute of Medicine n.d). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health The impact of the IOM report on nursing education The primary goals of nursing education is mainly to prepare nurses to meet the ever increasing patients’ needs, function as leaders, and provide...
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...National competency standards for registered nurses would contain the core of evaluating competency for registered nurses, which they should meet for professional standards, such as professional, legal and ethical accountabilities, evidence-based clinical processing and nursing practice within a multidisciplinary team, under the authority of carrying out nursing practise within Australia. This essay would discuss and analyse about Elizabeth Kenny, who is the first person who developed the profession of physiotherapy in relation to the disease called Poliomyelitis from the Australian nursing history, and her achievements and performances on a specific field in a chronological order and would also evaluate the drawbacks of chosen nurse’s practices...
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...the task of removing a patient’s wound drain. Although educationally prepared , the enrolled nurse had not performed the procedure before but was prepared to undertake the procedure. Choose one of the scenarios above and use the Scope of Practice Decision Making Flowchat, evaluate each step to determine if the action take was appropriate 1. Identified client need/benefit 2. Regulated nursing practice 3. Accepted nursing or midwifery practice 4. Organisational support 5. Within the scope of practice 6. Appropriate to proceed Answer In Healthcare environment where change is a constant feature, nurses are expected to be flexible and to respond to change in ways that benefit health consumers. When making decisions nurses need to consider that individual have differences in the education , experience and competnece and their respective profession’s scope of practice. According to Nursing practice decisions summary guide by Nursing and Midwifery Board of Asutralia first the nurse need to identify client need /benefit and nurse need to reflect on scope of practice and nursing practice standards before making decision and nurse need to consider context of practice/ organisational support and last not the least nurse need to select appropriate and competent person to perform the activity. In this case study the enrolled nurse was educationally prepared but she had not perform the procedure which she was delegate to drain the patient’s wound. But she was prepared to...
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...Salford University Nursing /RN Mental Health BSc (Hons) • For 2015 entry all applicants must have GCSEs in English language, maths and science at Grade C minimum • BTEC National Diploma- DDM • UCAS tariff points- 260-300 points learn about how to support people during the most acute phases of their distress, how to work with people who have issues around substance misuse or offending behaviour and how to help those with ongoing mental health problems. Huddersfield University Nursing (Mental Health) Bsc (Hons) 2015-16 • 300 UCAS points including a social or biological science, Psychology, Maths or Health and Social Care • DDM BTEC in Health and Social Care. • English Language or English Literature and Maths GCSE at C or above Develop a high level of personal and technical skills to meet the differing needs of mental health service users who may be acutely ill, suffering with long term conditions or need help to maintain their health. You will learn how to work in partnership with patients and service users, their families, carers and other professionals to promote health, well being and recovery. Bradford University Nursing-Mental Health BSc (Hons) • BTEC Extended Diploma: DMM in a relevant Health or Science • Plus minimum of: 5 GCSEs at grade C or above to include English Language, Mathematics and Science (equivalents accepted). Will be taught by a team of professional nurses supported by other staff at the School of Health Studies, and...
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...Communication is a key skill for any health care professional, but for nurses, we ‘are in an occupation that has interpersonal communication at its core. Virtually all nursing work revolves around the need for nurses to be effective communicators, whether relating to colleagues or with service users. (Morrall 2001). This essay seeks to discuss an evidence based experience learnt in clinical practice. For the purpose of this essay the author has chosen communication skills, since it is the basis for which verbal, non verbal and written ideas are conferred among the nursing staff. Some key policies and evidence taken from (research evidence or from this essay) will be identified and discussed. It also seeks to conclude with a general analysis from the overall main findings of this essay. The National Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008) state that nurses must take part in appropriate learning and practice activities that maintain and develop their competence and performance. As a nurse in training, I had been given the opportunity to complete a four weeks placement in a rehabilitation unit. The services provided included the admission of patients requiring rehabilitation therapy and specialist nursing attention. I was elected by my mentor to sit in their weekly review meeting consisting of the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) in order to facilitate my learning objectives. As a student my role was to observe how the MDT addressed, planned and implemented patient care. This was necessary...
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