4 replies

4 replies

Lamenese

What are potential barriers to forming an effective relationship with families? What, if any, might be potential conflicts of interest?

The care of patients takes place within the context of the family. The families of patients are often closely involved in the care of patients and have close interest in the outcomes of the care process. The families of patients make decisions related to the care of their patients including who they allow to care for the patient, what procedure they may allow and other critical care decisions- at least when a patient is not in a position to make such decisions. Therefore, proper, cooperative relationship with the families of patients is critical in the nursing care of patients. Several factors can inhibit effective relationships with families.

Importantly, there are often misunderstandings about the care needs of the patients. This comes in various forms including variations in health beliefs between patient’s families and their nurses. The families of patients may not always agree with considered clinical decisions, may be less informed and inhibit their own ideas and concerns about the care approach. Patient’s families may consider one approach better than another in which case the nurse may have a difficult time convincing them otherwise (Loghamani, Borhani, & Abbaszadeh, 2014).

Secondly, patients and their families may perceive that nurses are unfair when they are in reality not unfair. It may be expected that families of a patient will often place the care of their relative ahead. It matters to them most. However, for the nurse, the care of patients is a delicate art that often requires triage and prioritizing care. The critically ill patient must be attended to first before the rest. In addition to limited time and huge work load in the hospital setting, nurses may not always attend to all patients with similar urgency (Baker et al., 2016).

A third area cause of conflict often involves miscommunication between families and the nurse provider. In the busy care set up, patients may hastily provide information, provide inadequate information or fail to provide required information. Such information varies from inconsequential issues to critical issues that affect patient care with varying results nurses (Loghamani, Borhani, & Abbaszadeh, 2014). Patients and their families may similarly fail to communicate the needs and concerns and hence cause loopholes in the care plan. The consequences of such miscommunication varies between cases and could include a simple inconvenience, disrupted care and, in the extreme end even death. This may potentially lead to malpractice lawsuits.

A final source of conflict with patients’ families occurs when nurses and other providers willfully or unintentionally ignore professional ethics nurses (Loghamani, Borhani, & Abbaszadeh, 2014). In these case, the provider may breach the rights of the patient to proper care through negligence or incompetence. The nurse may fail to document a procedure, administer a given medication improperly or fail to act accordingly in any other manner. Nursing decisions have a direct impact on the care outcome and hence on families of providers and thus, in cases of negligence, a potential source of conflict between these parties is likely to occur.

Conflicts of interest may occur in several cases. Often, providers may form attachment to particular patients. In this case, the nurse may provide preferential care and causing conflicts between themselves and patients and/or their families. A second cause of conflict of interest may occur when, for instance, nurses accept payment or other forms of compensation to provide particular attention to certain patients. This may lead to unethical and different treatments.

Alexandra

Forming Effective Relationships with Families

Creating effective relationships between the practitioners, patients, and patients’ families is a crucial part of treatment. Patients need the psychosocial support given by their families and loved ones, which is usually the only possible way for them to participate in the treatment process. However, sometimes this is not easy, and practitioners encounter barriers when forming these relationships. Several factors contribute to this problem; for instance, families giving up on their sick relatives is a common factor. For practitioners to facilitate the formation of effective relationships with families, they should look at patient-specific factors that contribute to the relationships between the patient’s family and the patient.

The patient's attributes or condition could be a barrier to creating close family ties. For instance, a physician dealing with a patient that suffers from addictions and has a history of relapsing is likely to find it challenging to get their families to be actively involved in the treatment process. The family can lose hope in their efforts to recover. It is not easy for the physician to convince them that they still have a chance to recover and pursue a better life. Rane et al. (2017) recommend providing information on the nature of the condition to support family members. According to these authors, this is the best intervention because sometimes lack of cooperation from family members is due to lack of treatment details. When they have adequate information, such as knowledge that addiction is a serious issue and takes time to get rid of it, they are likely to agree to form an effective relationship.

Another potential barrier to having an effective relationship with family members is the foundation of the relationship between the patient and their family. Some families are not close-knit for different reasons, including physical separation due to work and lack of effort to create a functional relationship. Consequently, it is hard for the family that has not invested in a close connection earlier to begin doing so for health promotion. Campos and Kim (2017) note that it is important to understand diversity issues that contribute to creating close family ties because they influence a person's health and well-being. With this approach, the physician can find cultural aspects that will first make the family supportive to the treatment process, hence creating a good relationship. An example is religion, where incorporating their religious values in the treatment process is a good step towards getting the family’s cooperation.

Conflict of interest in family health promotion is a common phenomenon. It happens due to many different reasons, and one of them is cultural issues. An excellent example of an issue that could lead to a conflict of interest is the type of care that the patient wants. For instance, abortion and mental health care can bring about conflict within families. In some cultures, abortion is strictly forbidden, and in others, mental health care is highly stigmatized, especially among men. While the patient needs and consents to the care, the family could abandon them. Alhazmi (2019) reports that patient consent and choice are paramount in any situation that can pose a conflict of interest. It is the primary and only basis for decision-making.

Promoting family health is one of the biggest challenges in a nursing practitioner’s professional life. However, it is an excellent way to achieve positive health outcomes in general. However, it does not come without its issues. Nursing practitioners must understand boundaries, laws, and regulations that define their professional conduct to provide proper care. These laws enhance decision-making, solve ethical dilemmas, and prevent legal ramifications that occur due to misconduct.

MacKington

The components of information systems enable nurses to have proper clinical management decision-making. Also, information systems promote linking clinical information with management, behavioral, and communication sciences. With more advances in medical science, new nursing roles are developing in the industry, such as system development, research, nursing administration, and nursing education. Many nurses have invested in information systems due to the vision projected by information systems in enhancing nursing and benefiting patients through improved and extended healthcare (Andargoli et al., 2017). Nurses have a significant role while deciding the type of information system they wish to invest in.

One major component during decision-making is the usability of a specified information system. The effective and efficient use of information systems relies greatly on these systems' designs and how the systems fulfill nurses' needs. Notably, a poorly designed information system can complicate nurses' daily routine, resulting in problems associated with the systems' acceptance and applicability (Andargoli et al., 2017). Proper user interface design thus acts as a crucial element during decision-making and influences how the user interacts with the system.

Another consideration during the decision-making process is ensuring the system is easy to learn and use. Notably, display format, navigation format of the instructions, data entry, and retrieval should be meaningful for nurses. This consideration enables nurses to find information systems that are relevant to the work. Furthermore, it is critical to note that interactive information systems should be designed with the above usability features. Usability is closely linked with the quality of information systems and affects the extent to which a system can effectively or efficiently be used to achieve a specific goal and promote nurse satisfaction (Rouleau et al., 2017).

Also, nurses should consider the controllability of the information system. While checking these features, nurses should evaluate functions such as using shortcuts and ways of saving frequent actions. According to research, a nurse should choose controllability as a crucial feature of a well-designed information system. Moreover, this feature points out the controllability of a nurse to move between screens, running procedures when required, and returning to the main menu, which are crucial elements that nurses should consider. Also, nurses should check for flexibility of the system in terms of using identical keys for the same action. Research indicates that the information systems that do not meet the expectations of the user are at a higher risk of failure (Andargoli et al., 2017). Consistently use of designation in all aspects of the system allow displaying of messages on the same screen and predicting the time needed to perform a task are examples of approaches nurses should use in assessing the conformity levels of a system.

In addition to the above features of information systems, nurses should also put into consideration the competency to use an information system. Competency is determined by a nurse's ability to apply computer skills and implement informatics knowledge and skills. Computer skills to determine whether a nurse can perform computerized searches, use telecommunication services, and document patient care is crucial. Informatic knowledge necessitates that nurses be aware of the importance of nursing data in recognizing that computers can facilitate care and undertint the ethical values required in computing (Rouleau et al., 2017). Finally, during decision-making, nursing should understand the usability problems that occur due to limited functionalist and poor fitting between these systems and nurses' professional requirements.

Lany

When selecting information systems there are many concepts to take into consideration. A lot of these have to do with evaluation of the systems, need for the system, development process, basic structure, functionality, and impact (Nelson & Staggers, 2014). The most important role nurses have in the decision-making process is related to the series of sequential logical steps or phases and the integration and testing (Nelson & Staggers, 2014). Nursing prospective is very important in implementing information systems as they spend most of their time inputting information related to patient care into this documenting system.

Nursing informatics has evolved significantly by advances in health information and communication technologies, has been applied in all areas of nursing, including clinical practice, administration, education, and research (Gordon, 2019). Nursing informatic systems are used to bridge nursing practice with nursing research Gordon, 2019). This gap that is being bridge can help with improving patient care and outcome due the evidence-based practices that are used for continuity of care. Education can be more effective in these system as they are consistently evolving and changing. Communication between health providers are properly transmitted related to effective and thoroughly document information within the health system for the patient. These systems are used to troubleshoot human error and skilled nurses are testing these systems for their efficiency.

Nursing role in decision making will help solidify the benefits these systems are for the company. Evaluating the core processes and useability of the system will be mostly evaluated by the nurses that interact with the system more. Many medical sites and treatment centers use electronic record keeping and for the transition period nurses were involved to help make improvement and determine the viability of these programs. Nurses has a tremendous impact on a lot of the decision making in healthcare facility pertaining patient care and treatment. Not only are nurses lead decision makers for care plans nurses are also included in company policy and decision-making process. Nurses play an important role in many areas of healthcare practices. As many healthcare professionals look to nurses for follow-up or even guidance to effectively treat their patient. Patient advocacy has been nursing primary outlook on daily duties and assignment, so with much consideration nurses are always looking in the best interest of heir patient.