According to Rachel (2012) “accountability is at the heart of nursing, weaving its way through nursing practice in all settings and at all levels” (para. 1). Accountability builds the individual and organizational credibility by clearly setting the expectations, goals, and commitments. As a nurse, I am committed to growing and advance in my knowledge and skills, adhere to the nursing standards and ethics, involve in professional associations, and attain any certifications needed for my practice. In personal growth and development area, I would rate myself in between the competent and expert level, since I am on track in implementing my action plans to advance my education, keep up with continued education credits required, have a plan for my
Like the patients have the rights to refuse the treatments, we as nurses have the rights to refuse any assignment that we think is not balance, bias or that could make our practice unsafe. “The American Nurses Association (ANA) upholds that registered nurses – based on their professional and ethical responsibilities – have the professional right to accept, reject or object in writing to any patient assignment that puts patients or themselves at serious risk for harm” (American Nurses Association, 2015, 1). The nurses' refusal should not be based, however, on personal preferences. Any nurse who acts in such matter can be held accountable in the decisions of refusal an assignment personal preferences patient abandonment. Nevertheless, the refusal can be based solely on moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.
The article that I chose for this week relates to effective delegation in nursing practice. Delegation is an extremely important ingredient in the delivery of care provided by health care professionals. However, with delegation comes great responsibility. Licensed Nurses must always know the laws enforced by their state boards as to what levels of care can be delegated to another provider and who has the authority to perform the delegated tasks. Every state has different laws as to what services can be delegated and by whom.
Nursing Delegation for the RN Delegation is considered to be among the most involved nursing skills which require a nurse to apply knowledgeable clinical judgment and accountability during patient care. RNs have an obligation to finding what is needed for patients and families and then using the appropriate delegation to staff to help carry out the plan. This helps maximize on achieving the most desired outcomes and also maximize the use of available resources. The only way to help RNs maximize the available resources is through improving their delegation skills. If a nurse is to be delegated a task, it should be within their scope of nursing and also be tasks they are qualified to perform.
Professional and ethical accountability is an essential factor in the nursing profession and patient safety. As proposed by the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics requires that individual nurses take responsibility to one action to others (patients and family members, our profession, coworkers, workplace, and to oneself (Batti, & Steelman, 2014). Therefore, According to McCormick, (201) accountability is the basis in building trust, reducing fear, and enhancing morale and performant. Accountability depends on both effective communication skills and clinical expertise. It helps nurses to recognize breach in care that can adversely affect patient health outcome and be able to correct them on time.
Promoting patient’s autonomy is showing a sense of respect the patients. This can be violated very easy, it is the nurse responsibility to provide some sort of safety to prevent this from occurring. By educating the patients is recommended in all healthcare environment. When these patients understand that they have right to their medical information, and also they have right to make any decision, they will be able to advocate themselves and prevent it. Educating the patient as a preventive measure that will also prevent any ethical dilemma advanced practice nurses’ moral distress.
Medication errors are the leading cause of patient injuries in hospitals today. These preventable mistakes lengthen hospital stays, increase inpatient expenses, and cause over seven thousand deaths
Teamwork, communication, and delegation in nursing are variables dependent on one another for success. This post is the first in a series on nursing delegation in which we will discuss the team nursing model, the RN 's role in task delegation, and how effective communication fosters teamwork which leads to better outcomes for patients and employees. Detailed and timely communication among registered nurses (RNs) and other team members, leads to improved quality measures and outcomes. In fact, studies have shown that negative outcomes were often linked to communication errors. As such, safety, delegation, and quality of care are dependent on one another.
With each passing year, the mantle of accountability grows heavier on the shoulders of registered nurses worldwide. In a profession whose roots date back to Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, no time in nursing’s history has the word accountability meant so much. As the profession assumes more and more power, the burden of liability becomes heavier. However, few individuals know the true meaning of accountability. For many, accountability and responsibility have the same meaning and carry the same weight.
When one considers the traits needed to be a good nurse, and what a core value of nursing would be, a multitude of characteristics are brought forth. Common ideas brought forth are empathy, integrity, respect and communication. However, an often overlooked but nonetheless quintessential attribute of the nursing practice is accountability. In nursing, where the lives of patient’s and their loved ones, and the reputation of one’s own nursing practice are in one’s hands, it is essential to take responsibility for what you do or do not say or do. Being accountable for one’s actions or words can often mean either recovery or deterioration, health or illness, life or death.
Exploration of nurses’ knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers toward medication error reporting in tertiary health care facility: qualitative study Abstract Medication error reporting (MER) is an effective way used to identify the causes of MEs and to take the actions prevent repeating them in future. The underreporting of MEs is a major challenge which faced all MER systems. This study aimed to explore nurses’ knowledge towards ME reporting, to determine nurses’ attitude towards ME reporting and to investigate the perceived barriers and facilitators towards ME reporting among nurse. 23 nurses were interviewed on June 2015 using semi-structured interview guide. Saturation point was reached after 21 interviews, All interviews were audio
Katina, employee accountability is indeed important for organizational performance. Accountability have different meanings within professions and organizations. Accountability in nursing refers to the need for nurses to conduct themselves according to legal and ethical standards (Griffith, 2015). Accountable nurses must be able to defend their actions, both legally and professionally. The standards that are set by state nursing boards provide an additional level of accountability to nurses.
Hello Shawn, Thank you for sharing your ideas on this week’s topic. Safety is one the core competencies that every future health care worker should have, more importantly nurses since we are the last checkpoint for the patient. You are right about medication errors when you stated “mediation error puts patients at risk of serious safety issues and even death.” This is show the importance of safe practice. Great post!
Nursing and Ethics Healthcare ethics has been of higher importance as long as healthcare practice has existed. It is first necessary to explain that healthcare ethics is regarded as moral principles that are commonly considered as allowable and reasonable by the society. However, in spite of a universally stable set of ethical standards that direct the healthcare industry, there are many cases of these values on the verge of being violated. For instance, it is extremely possible that a medical worker will face an extraordinary situation that requires high performance of reaction, solicitude, attention and custody. Professor Megan-Jane Johnstone who is noted for her scientific researches in the areas of health care ethics and nursing has focused her work titled Nurses' Experiences of Ethical Preparedness for Mass Health Emergencies and Healthcare Disasters: A Systematic Review
Accountability: A literature search was carried out to find a definition of accountability using the BNI and CINHAL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) ‘accountability’ was inputted into the databases. 18,114 results from search engine BNI and 16,725 results were produced from CINHAL respectfully. Results were reduced as filters were applied (see appendices 2). Filters were applied, before titles, abstracts and whole articles were reviewed, this was the case for Mullen (2014) on CINHAL.
