Advantages and Disadvantages of Nursing Care Model (Essay Sample)

CARE PLANNING
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Care Planning
Introduction
A care plan is an essential aspect for providing standardized quality patient care. In nursing, care planning helps to describe the role of each healthcare provider in a patient's treatment; it also provides care consistency and enables the healthcare team to tailor interventions for each patient based on patient health needs (Neeley 2019). Similarly, care planning helps define SMART goals for the patient and promotes holistic patient care. The care planning process entails four main stages; assessment of the patient problem, diagnosing the problem, planning treatment, implementing the intervention, and evaluating the efficiency of interventions in meeting the desired care goals. However, while developing a care plan for a patient, it is essential to incorporate a suitable nursing model. Nursing models are primarily constructed on theories and philosophies and are essential for the nursing team to assess, plan, and implement patient care, allowing them to achieve uniformity and seamless care (Nursing Times 2018). For this particular case study, the suitable nursing model is the primary nursing model. The primary nursing model allows for holistic patient care; it seeks to understand all the underlying factors that led to a patient's condition rather than focusing on one particular health aspect. Therefore, it is the most suitable nursing care model for resolving Alvin's health care needs. While Alvin has several health care needs that require medical attention, the three primary health needs that the nursing team will seek to resolve are lower back pain, urinary retention, and low weight. The assessment indicates that Alvin suffers severe back and abdominal pain, has poor bowel health, and lost much weight. Therefore, resolving these three health problems could improve Alvin's health.
Nursing Model
There are several nursing models usually used by healthcare providers in a healthcare system to ensure the ideal patient outcome. However, given that Alvin has more complex health needs that require holistic care, the ideal model for improving Alvin's health outcome is the primary care model. Based on Alvin's health history, several underlying factors led to his current condition. The history reveals that Alvin, at a younger age, suffered physical abuse and was addicted to substance use, which are the factors that might have resulted in developing schizophrenia. Therefore, Alvin needs comprehensive care that considers every health need and not just focuses on a single health element such as treating schizophrenia. In light of these underlying conditions and Alvin's complex health needs, a primary nursing care model becomes the suitable model. The primary nursing care model allows for individualized patient care provided by one nurse in charge throughout the care plan. Given Alvin's mental health needs, he requires continuity care from a familiar individual to create a conducive environment for positive health outcomes. Using one senior nurse to provide care encourages a positive patient-nurse relationship essential for improving Alvin's behavior and mental health status. According to Rentas et al. (2019), primary care setting such as provided in the primary nursing care model offer a unique opportunity to improve patient behavior as there is regular interaction with the same care provider hence improving the patient-doctor relationship. Consequently, Alvin needs attendance from a multi-disciplinary team of care providers; the primary nursing care model provides an opportunity for senior care to communicate with other care professionals about the patient's health care. Having another care provider in the team will help improve Alvin's health needs, such as low weight and urinary tract problems.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Primary Nursing Care Model
One of the notable advantages of the primary nursing care model is that it allows care to meet all patient-specific health needs; that is, it embraces a patient-centered care approach. Besides, the primary care model allows healthcare providers to establish a relationship with the patient and their family or support system. The model also gives a registered nurse the autonomy, the ability to make nursing care decisions. Despite its valuable advantages, the model has several disadvantages; foremost, it is costly as it requires more nurses to take of the patient throughout the care period. It also demands that the registered nurse operates with high responsibility and autonomy to avoid harming the patient. The model does not seem to favor working in shifts, as the primary nurse is expected to take 24 hours responsibility for patient care, therefore denying the healthcare professionals work-life balance. However, even though the primary care model is not cost-effective, the high-quality and holistic care the patient receives and the ability to incorporate patient and family in care plan overweighs the cost of care; hence making it the most suitable care model in the modern healthcare system that embraces primary patient-centered care.
The Care Plan (See Appendix)
The nursing care plan is a formal procedure that entails establishing a patient existing health needs and acknowledging the potential needs and risks. It provides a communication link between healthcare practitioners, patients, and other care providers to achieve quality health care outcomes. Therefore, without a care plan, there would be a lack of consistency and quality inpatient care. Care plan begins after a patient is enrolled for treatment, and it is continuously updated in response to changes in patient condition and assessment of goal achievement. Though there are several types of nursing care plans, in this case, a study dealing with one patient with unique health needs, an individualized nursing care plan will be adopted, as it offers an opportunity to address the unique needs of a particular patient.
SMART Goals
Based on Alvin's case, the three main goals that the care plan seeks to achieve are; the patient after 30 days should report pain levels lower than four on a scale rating of 0 to 10, the patient should be able to empty his bladder after two weeks, and the patient should maintain a weight between 110 to 140 lbs after 30 days.
Goal 1: Pain levels below 4 (on a scale rating of 0 to 10)
Alvin, on an assessment by the team leader Abdul Devi, reported a pain level of 10 on the pain scale, an indication that Alvin was experiencing severe pain which might have incapacitated him, as it is also reported that Alvin hardly moved out of his bed due to severe back and abdominal pain. In light of acknowledging Alvin's severe pain, it was necessary to develop a care plan to reduce the pain rate level below 4 in a period of 30 days. However, Alvin's lack of movement can be associated with social exclusion; nobody would accord him the needed support, such as holding his hand to walk around and to the washroom to relieve himself. Additionally, Alvin needs to be physically active and must be able to move out of his bed; however, with the niggling back and abdominal pains, Alvin most likely will not move out of his bed or get involved in a physical exercise which is necessary for improving his health outcome.
Actions and interventions
Alvin's main problem is lower back pain, and therefore designing appropriate nursing actions and interventions is necessary for reliving this health condition. Low back pains exhibit recurrent nature; therefore, patient-centered care management is the most appropriate to equip the patient with the knowledge to help them manage their conditions in the future. Foremost, the primary nurse will have to conduct a blood test to check if the pain is due to inflammation, and if possible, order for a bone scan to check for fractures. Notably, to reduce pain levels, Alvin is experiencing 30 days to below 4 (on a scale of 10). The primary nurse must first prescribe drug therapies such as low-risk analgesics, particularly paracetamol, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin to relieve the back pain and enable Alvin to reduce time spent on bed due to severe pain. However, Alvin should only be advised to take short courses of drug therapy and report for a review to evaluate the effectiveness of the drugs.
Additionally, the primary care nurse should collaborate with physiotherapists to assess Alvin's condition and design an appropriate physical exercise to help relieve the pain. However, based on Alvin's case, the appropriate physical exercise would be McKenzie exercises, which focus on flexion, lateral, and extension movements to minimize the intensity of back pain symptoms (May 2015). Regardless, the McKenzie exercise should only be prescribed after an appropriate assessment, as administering the wrong exercise could worsen the patient's symptoms.
Expected Outcome
While administering a nursing intervention improves patient health outcomes, the result is not always a guarantee. However, there must always be an expected health outcome when an intervention is designed to resolve a patient's health problem. Alvin reported suffering severe back pain, and drug therapies were recommended to help manage his pain; with this, the expected outcome is that Alvin will experience reduced back pain as a result of taking low-risk analgesics such as paracetamol or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicine like aspirin. Also, it is expected that after administering the short course drugs, Alvin will engage in light physical exercise and gradually improve to engage in physical exercise at least four times week...