Question:

Nursing as a profession is responsible for creating and maintaining standards to ensure safe, effective care.

Describe indicators of professionalism, including how nurses may be involved in professional activities; demonstrate accountability to the scope of practice; maintain nursing standards.

Discuss three key nursing standards. Also, describe how you can use these skills to improve the therapeutic value of nursing care.

This task requires that you write an academic essay. Your introduction must be well connected and well structured. A body paragraph should then follow.

You must ensure that the conclusion is not filled with quotes/references and does not introduce new ideas.

Your essay must be written in the third person.

The journal articles collected from Assessment 2 can be used to help you.

A minimum of 5 journal article are needed

You must reference your essay in APA 6th style with paraphrasing.

You must provide evidence that you have used a variety of reliable, relevant, and credible literature to support your arguments.

You can use the journal articles that Assessment 2 has provided.

A minimum 5 journal articles must be included, and they should not have been published in the last 7 year.

Answer to Question: HNB1103 Professional Studies 1

A nursing profession requires that the professional ensures patient’s holistic health by using their communication skills, empathy and communication skills.

Nursing professionals are responsible for patient satisfaction and providing high quality care to both patients and their families.

To ensure that patients receive the best care possible, nurses need to develop the necessary skills and competencies.

Jeffreys (2015) outlines the requirements for nurses to ensure their activities adhere to international and national nursing standards.

This essay will focus on the nursing professional standard, which is the foundation of the therapeutic value nursing care.

Based on the key requirements of nurses professionals, there are key indicators that help determine the skills and competences a nursing professional needs to be able to provide the best care for patients.

The board of nurses in Australia (i.e.

The standards set forth by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia) address these key indicators of professionalism.

All of these standards must be met by nurses in order to maintain their key competencies in nursing. Adam, Osborne & Welch 2017.

These indicators are used to measure professionalism in nursing.

These indicators include:

Communication- A key indicator of professionalism is communication skill for nurses. Effective communication is essential for nurses to deliver adequate nursing care to patients while also promoting patient satisfaction.

Additionally, communication skills are essential for professional communication with doctors and other professionals (Riley 2015.

Therapeutic relationship – A nurse should have a positive relationship to the patient to ensure maximum satisfaction and patient compliance with the therapeutic approach.

People-centred treatment is now common. It is the foundation of the therapeutic relationship.

Empathy- When working with different patient types, nurses must understand their current needs and communicate those with the care staff. This is essential in creating a positive care environment which will ensure that the patient receives maximum benefits, as well satisfaction.

This requires nurses to show empathy towards patients and their families (Douglas and colleagues, 2014).

Empathy allows patients to feel valued and respected by their care team.

Critical thinking: Nurses need to be able to evaluate each patient’s unique health needs and create care plans for them.

Nurses may be required to respond to emergencies and deal with complex patients in many cases.

Nursing may need to have a thorough education in order to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills (Kitson, 2013).

Health care requires teamwork and delegation. Staff members of health care are expected to work together in order to reach their goals.

A care team includes the patient and their family member. Where nurse play an active role, sharing information and opinions to improve the patient’s health, the nurse can also be a member.

Weber & Farrell (2016). Registered nurse have the ability to delegate work based on the expertise of other staff members.

Evaluation skills- Nursing professionals are known for their ability to assess the nursing staff, patients, and themselves.

Also, when planning care for patients, nurses need to assess the suitability of the specific intervention in relation of pre-existing evidences supporting the intervention (Hessels, et al. 2015).

The professional standards for nurses must be developed in the context of professionalism.

The professional scope for nursing practice covers all of the duties, responsibilities, and activities that staff members are licensed to perform.

Based on the scope and practice of the health care setting, nursing standards are established.

The nursing profession has many scopes of practice. These include nurse practitioner, registered nurse, nurse practitioner and assistant nurse. Midwives are also included.

They all have common and unique professional characteristics, which are used to determine their professional standards.

Three nursing standards are presented in the following section (Arnold & Boggs, 2015).

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), is the nursing profession’s regulatory body.

Tobiano et.al. (2015). Nursing standards refer to the NMBA standards, professional codes and guidelines. These standards have been developed so that current practice is consistent with the standards.

Nursing is responsible for autonomous practice in dynamic systems and relationships with other healthcare professionals.

NMBA has set seven important nursing standards which registered nurses must follow in order to be able to practice their profession.

Standard 1 states that nurses should think critically and analyze their nursing practice.

The previous section has shown that critical thinking skill is an indicator of professionalism in the field of nursing.

In order to excel in their career, nurses must be able to think critically and analyze.

Nursing is more successful if they are able think critically and can manage complex patient cases with efficiency. This increases success rates and improves patient health outcomes.

The prior evidences must be reviewed by nurses before implementing a particular intervention. (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013, p.

They must maintain accurate, complete and timely documentation about all assessments, planning, decision making, and any other actions they are undertaking.

They are able to improve their knowledge and patient satisfaction, reduce negative effects, and enhance their analytical and critical thinking skills.

By meeting this standard, nurses can ultimately improve the quality and efficiency of their nursing services.

Standard 2 states that nurses must have therapeutic and professional relationships.

As we have discussed, nursing practice requires both professional and therapeutic relationships.

It’s because, relationship building includes collegial generosity and mutual trust in professional relationships.

Nurses must be respectful, dignified, and compassionate towards their patients as well.

As we’ve seen, the nursing profession requires collaboration.

Nurses are part a multidisciplinary care team where other professionals also play an important role in patient care.

To ensure everyone’s opinion is valued, nurses should work together (Nursing & Council 2012.

To improve health outcomes nurses must be competent in supervision, delegation, coordination of consultations, and referrals in professional relationships.

Establishing a therapeutic relationship with a patient requires effective communication, positive interaction and empathy. All of these factors help increase patients’ trust in therapeutic activities and improve their therapeutic value.

While working with other professionals, nurses can support and guide their colleagues to find the resources they need to optimise health-related decision making.

It also assists nursing staff in ensuring that they adhere to the ethical legal framework for nursing (Ross, Barr & Stevens,2013).

Standard 7 says that “nurses must evaluate outcomes to inform nursing practices.”

The previous section has shown that nursing professionalism is determined by the quality of nurses’ evaluation skills.

It’s because nurses must evaluate the patient’s health, priority, current needs, goals and care plans. They also have to ensure that the care framework is followed.

Continuous monitoring and evaluations on patient’s vital signs and their health status can help reduce the possibility of errors in nursing care and assure the highest quality.

Nursing staffs benefit from continuous self-evaluation to enhance their professional abilities and problem solving skills.

It allows them to identify and correct any weaknesses in the plan, which can help ensure high therapeutic value.

We can conclude that nurses are responsible for meeting their own goals and responsibilities.

To ensure patients’ best health, nursing staff must align physician recommendations with their own nursing knowledge.

To evaluate how these standards have increased nursing’s therapeutic value, we will present the key indicators as well as the professional standards.

Refer toAdam, S., Osborne, S., & Welch, J. (Eds.). (2017).

Critical care nursing science and practice.

Oxford University Press.Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2015). Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.Douglas, M. K., Rosenkoetter, M., Pacquiao, D. F., Callister, L. C., Hattar-Pollara, M., Lauderdale, J., … & Purnell, L. (2014).

Guidelines for culturally competent nurse care.

Journal of Transcultural Nursing 25, 109-121.Hessels, A. J., Flynn, L., Cimiotti, J. P., Cadmus, E., & Gershon, R. R. (2015).

The impact of the nursing practice environment upon missed nursing care. Clinical nursing studies, 3(4), 60.Jeffreys, M. R. (2015).

Teaching cultural competence and nursing and healthcare: Inquiry. Action. Innovation.

Springer Publishing Company.Kitson, A., Marshall, A., Bassett, K., & Zeitz, K. (2013).

What are the fundamental elements of patient-centred?care?

The literature review and synopsis of health policy, medicine, nursing literature.

Journal of advanced nurses, 69(1): 4-15.Nursing, A., & Council, M. A. (2012).

Australian guidelines for the accreditation and endorsement of nursing and midwifery programs, leading to registration and endorsementRalph, N., Birks, M., & Chapman, Y. (2015).

Accreditation of nursing education Australia. Collegian, 22(1), 3-7.Riley, J. B. (2015). Communication in nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.Ross, K., Barr, J., & Stevens, J. (2013).

What does this mean to Australian nurses? Mandatory continuing professional learning requirements BMC nursing, 12(1), 9.Tobiano, G., Marshall, A., Bucknall, T., & Chaboyer, W. (2015).

A comprehensive review of patient participation in nursing on medical wards.

International journal nursing studies, 52(6).Weber, K., & Farrell, T. (2016).

A standardized client simulation is integrated into an Associate Degree Nursing Program to help develop therapeutic communication skills.