Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

Introduction

The environments in which nurses operate have varying challenges. Having analyzed the early readmission of heart failure patients and how to overcome it, I have understood that there are many things that nurse practitioners ought to understand in order to offer high quality services as is expected of them. It is not just about the skills to administer medical services to the patients but leadership and ownership should come into play. Nurses need to take up situations and ensure they are completed and closed. For example, HF patients need to be treated, properly trained before discharge and follow-ups done to monitor there health. Reports need to be given to the relevant managers until a patient is done with. Leadership helps in giving appropriate directions to ensure that work is performed to perfection.

New Practice Approaches

There are many changes that occur in different organizations and health care is one of them. I have learnt that adapting to changes is necessary to remain relevant in the field. The evidence-based research showed that most health care facilities still use traditional care approaches which result in poor patient outcomes. It is crucial to embrace new enhanced methods and change ways of doing things in order to improve care delivery. The evidence-based research reviewed various articles and this shows the importance of the need to improve one’s skills to meet the high-quality services. The research also helps in introducing relevant changes to the nurse fraternity to ensure that care delivery is improved. Such changes may also bring significant impacts to future career development.

Inter-professional Collaboration

Health care systems are complex and they need interprofessional collaboration to be able to successfully achieve their objectives. I have learnt that nurses cannot work alone if they need to achieve high quality care. Several caregivers come into play as there is need for effective care transition among care givers. Educators, researchers and clinical practitioners all play important roles (Green, B. N., & Johnson, C. D., 2015). Apart from nurses and other caregivers, health care systems need the help of IT specialists who assist in managing the technical systems used to offer care. Inter-professional collaboration ensures collective efforts that drives an organization towards realizing its set goals.

Ethical Considerations in Healthcare

There are always challenges with ethics relating to patient care. What is right and what is wrong in professional decision making can be viewed differently by the surrounding population. Sometimes the decisions that nurses make on behalf of the patient may affect ethical practices. It is, therefore, quite crucial to understand the ethical beliefs of the population. This can be done by consulting the ethical experts. Understanding ethical practices enables nurses to support such practices that improve the levels of health care (Haddad L., Geiger R., 2019).

Population health concerns

There are several health issues that the population can get concerned about. The population can may worry about certain kinds of diseases or causes of certain types of diseases or even finances and economics surrounding health care. It is important for a nurse practitioner to understand the various population health concerns. These concerns vary from one region to another. Evidence-based studies can be used to understand the varying health concerns and to device ways of how to approach them.

The role of technology in improving health care outcomes

Technology has brought a lot of changes into the health sector which has enabled fast, efficient and effective delivery of care services. The use of electronic health records, for example, has enabled effective transition of care. The discovery and constant improvement of devices and software that has made easy and fast the disease diagnosis and patient data analysis has significantly improved patient outcomes (Thimbleby H., 2013). Technology has also enhanced medical research resulting in the discovery of better cures and better ways of dealing with various types of patients.

Health policy

Health policy is important in the development of the framework in which nurses operate. Guidelines are provided to nurses outlining how work should be done in order to achieve certain targets. As such, health policy is crucial in setting standards and targets of a health institution. Nurses are guided on what they should prioritize while working towards the set targets.

Leadership and economic models

Nurses ought to display leadership qualities in their areas of work. In quest to realize high quality health care services, nurses should take initiative to lead changes and improvements in their field. Registered nurses have been well trained and they are in a position to lead innovative changes (Thomas, T. et al., 2016). They should also be involved in key economic changes that drive the success of health care systems (MacLeod L., 2014).

Health Disparities

This refers to a situation where other people get to enjoy better health care services that others. This mostly occurs due to difference in the levels of income. The poorer population visit public low-quality health care centers while the rich go to high quality, mostly private health care institutions. In the United States, low income black Americans may find it hard to access better health care compared to middle income white Americans (Jackson, C. S., & Gracia, J. N., 2014). Disparities also come in terms of the type of diseases affecting different individuals. The who live lavish lifestyles are likely to suffer cardiovascular diseases due to the type of food and lack of exercises. Nurses can apply selection method to identify these kinds of health disparities and advice the patients accordingly.

References

Green, B. N., & Johnson, C. D. (2015). Interprofessional collaboration in research, education, and clinical practice: working together for a better future. The Journal of chiropractic education, 29(1), 1–10. doi:10.7899/JCE-14-36

Haddad L., Geiger R., (2019). Nursing Ethical Considerations. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/

Thimbleby H. (2013). Technology and the future of healthcare. Journal of public health research, 2(3), e28. doi:10.4081/jphr.2013.e28

Thomas T.W., Seifert P.C., & Joyner J.C., (2016). Registered Nurses Leading Innovative Changes. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 21, No. 3, Manuscript 3.

MacLeod L., (2014). The importance of fundamental economic concepts for nurse leaders: No margin, no mission.

Jackson, C. S., & Gracia, J. N. (2014). Addressing health and health-care disparities: the role of a diverse workforce and the social determinants of health. Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974), 129 Suppl 2(Suppl 2), 57–61. doi:10.1177/00333549141291S211