Health & Wellness

7 Tips For Nurses To Improve Patient Care

Nurses stand in an indispensable position in the healthcare industry. As the backbone of medical services, their job responsibilities cover many duties and are incredibly diverse. For instance, besides administering medicines and monitoring a patient’s vitals, they also advocate for ensuring patients receive the best possible care.

Unlike physicians or surgeons, nursing professionals are at the forefront of patient interactions and, therefore, the source that most directly impacts patient outcomes. Their attention to detail, constant vigilance, and ability to alleviate patient anxiety are prime factors in helping make accurate and timely diagnoses.

With modern medical advancements and knowledge coming to light, hospitals want to see how every new intervention influences the outcome. More importantly, they want to identify possible gaps to ensure patients always receive optimal care and treatment for their health concerns.

So, whether you’re just starting your nursing career or looking to enhance your skills, these seven tips can significantly help you improve patient care.

Tips for Nurses to Improve Patient Care

Here we have listed tips for nurses to improve patient care:

1.   Advance Your Education

As time passes, new medical knowledge and technology continue to emerge. Diseases that were once incurable now have a myriad of treatment options.

Medicines that healthcare professionals used to consider safe have proven to have several adverse effects.

And lastly, medical procedures that required a patient to stay in the hospital for weeks have now become minimally invasive and shortened hospital visits to a few hours.

Therefore, as a nurse, you must keep up-to-date with all the latest information, techniques, and discoveries. Enrolling in an online RN to MSN program can help you achieve this since these remote degree programs are ideal for working professionals looking to advance their education.

You can apply the knowledge and skills you acquire here in your career to improve patient care and reduce the burden on healthcare systems.

2. Consider Potential Communication Barriers

In recent years, public health officials have worked tirelessly to bridge health inequity and make healthcare accessible to marginalized and underrepresented communities.

And so, hospitals and clinics now have culturally, ethnically, and socially diverse patient groups than they did a few years ago.

Due to differences in language, culture, and customs, not all your patients may understand the medical information or guidelines a healthcare worker provides them.

In such cases, you must consider potential communication barriers and try to mitigate them by explaining things in their native language.

Knowing a patient’s medical history and educating them regarding their health concerns are crucial for any treatment.

3. Work In Interdisciplinary Teams

Treatment plans have become incredibly versatile and require the expertise of professionals from various disciplines. And to ensure everyone on the team remains on the same page and adequately understands one another, nurses must work in interdisciplinary groups.

This is because while physicians and surgeons focus on the technical aspect of a disease, the nurses advocate for their patients. Their input in treatment plans ensures the patient’s concerns and feedback aren’t ignored and that whatever happens, happens with their consent.

Therefore, during your internships, or training, you must ask for rotations in various departments to learn the ins and outs of each healthcare discipline.

This approach will help you communicate with interdisciplinary teams much more quickly, allowing you to work better with your patient.

4. Individualize Your Care

While medical books tend to generalize the information you receive from them, you must remember that no two patients are the same. Even when they exhibit similar symptoms, the outcome for one patient can vastly differ from another.

Factors like lifestyle habits, family history, and socioeconomic backgrounds can contribute to anomalies in why the same disease manifests differently in each patient. And since medical evidence may diverge, it’s crucial to individualize patient care.

More importantly, the healthcare industry is now transitioning into a personalized medicine approach where each patient gets treated differently.

Therefore, while your past experiences with a patient offer excellent learning opportunities, they shouldn’t be a benchmark for how you care for your patient.

5. Report Medical Errors

Healthcare workers often don’t report minor medical errors or misjudgments they might have made during a treatment protocol. This habit often stems from the fear of getting sued with a malpractice or negligence lawsuit and, in severe cases, losing their medical license.

However, you must look at the bigger picture if you make a mistake. Instead of covering it up, report it to the relevant authority so they can ensure such errors don’t happen again.

The practice of reporting all errors and mistakes, regardless of how trivial they may seem, has several benefits. It keeps you accountable for your actions, helps you learn from what you did wrong, and prevents you from repeating it.

6. Provide A Safe Environment

Nurses aren’t just responsible for providing physical care to their patients. Since they’re often the primary interaction source, they must do all they can to provide a safe space for the patient. You must listen to their concerns and show empathy instead of judging or placating them over a health issue.

Failure to do so may result in the patient keeping crucial information to themselves, which can slow or even worsen their treatment.

However, if you gain their trust, they can feel more comfortable sharing their medical history or whatever brought them to the hospital.

Doctors can’t make an accurate diagnosis unless they figure out the precise source of the problem.

7. Raise Awareness

Most patients seek medical help when their condition has worsened, and few treatment options are available.

The primary reason for this is that many people don’t realize that the discomfort they have been feeling could be a possible symptom of a more serious underlying cause.

Therefore, one of the best ways to improve patient care is to raise awareness regarding the potential signs they must be on the lookout for. This way, if and when they experience an episode, they can seek urgent care instead of prolonging it.

Conclusion

Improving patient care is a team effort, but your contact with the patients is often the most frequent as a nurse. Therefore, following the above tips can enhance your skills and ensure your patient receives the best medical services possible.

Related Articles

Back to top button