Nursing Values (Essay Sample)

Nursing Values
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Nursing Values
Patient and family-centered care (PFCC) came into prominence in the ‘70s and more so when the Institute of Medicine decided its inclusion as an element of quality of healthcare (Nkrumah and Abekah-Nkrumah 2019). Onwards, PFCC has gained immense attention as it became one of the fundamental baselines upon which effective quality healthcare would be gauged. Its capability to advance healthcare was apparent in enhanced patients’ experiences during the process (Billingsley 2015). Besides improved health outcomes, there are other recognizable benefits, including reduced per capita costs of healthcare and increased quality and satisfaction (Kiwanuka, Shayan, and Tolulope 2019). In essence, the primary objective of PFCC is bent upon shifting the focus away from healthcare practitioners’ interests to much more thoughts on the patients’ matters.
However, the multidimensional concept faces significant barriers as well as facilitators in the process of implementation. It is essential to recognize these factors so that stakeholders are more equipped to improve PFCC delivery. Significant barriers have been identified across studies conducted in Iran, Europe, the United Kingdom (U.K.), and the United States (U.S.). These barriers include but not limited to unsupportive staff attitudes, environmental constraints, inadequate training, insufficient staffing, and lack of time (Esmaeili, Cheraghi, and Salsali 2014). On the other hand, the significant enablers to the cause include staff capacity building, primal focus on employees’ satisfaction, patient and family engagement, committed leadership, adequate resourcing, accountability, and incentives as well as a culturally supportive environment (Luxford, Safran, and Delbanco, 2011). PFCC is earmarked as a very fundamental approach in healthcare. Still, then it has its share of factors that act as barriers as well as facilitators meaning that stakeholders have to remain acquainted with these dynamics for PFCC to be a success.
Barriers to PFCC
Staffing Constraints
The success of any organizational objective is primarily bent on the effectiveness of their employees. Employees remain the firm’s most valuable intangible asset as they ensure that its operations run smoothly (Fulmer and Ployhart 2014). This assertion justifies that when adverse dynamics face the workforce, the organization’s measures towards positive progress capitulate. This aspect defines designs that will be significant obstacles to the implementation of PFCC. Staffing constraints refer to limitations to the number of administrative staff who are crucial in helping clinicians articulate PFCC in the hospital settings. Many clinical and non-clinical managers have cited this challenge as a significant barrier that arises from delay recruitments and in times when staff is on leave. In the latter, the problem escalates because most staff leaves are never back-filled, meaning the level of service delivery drops significantly. This situation has an overall negative appeal, as most managers are demotivated. Besides, casual staff lacks a similar level of competence as permanent staff because of experiential knowledge.
Staff Workloads and Time Constraints
Another dynamic that is apparent in the case of staffing is high staff workloads. This position gains further disservice when time pressures set in (Lloyd, Elkins, and Innes 2018). In this case, the workloads could emerge from bout the administrative and clinical functions. Such workloads are bound to increase in direct proportion to a rise in patient presentations. Beyond this cause, performance targets are other contributions that could result in time pressures. When there is an unbeatable workload, the staff has minimal time to attend to the demands of the PFCC. The team will be keen to ensure the administrative and clinical workload is sorted before they can project PFCC to the respective parties. In essence, minimalizing the workload provides them with time to focus on the patients and their needs.
Traditional Practices and Structures
The case for the prevailing practices and structures can never be disregarded, considering that this relatively new input. Some healthcare workers will regard a positivist healthcare tradition as “heavy machinery of their healthcare service” (Moore et al. 2017, p. 664). This assertion arises because such a system is created around the biomedical paradigm and becomes quite challenging in changing the ordinary manner of operations. Healthcare changes are met with intense scrutiny and reluctance from professionals who are used to conventional care pathways. Even though their opposition may not be verbal, they are less likely to deviate from their ‘usual care.’ Besides, extensive policies and regularities could take a share of blame in respect to the stagnancy of this ideal because they promote inflexibility (Gondek et al. 2017). It is worth noting that the success of PFCC is bent on professionals’ flexibility when working as well using different strategies to achieve this possibility (Alharbi 2014). However, the thing with their usual operations is the existence of power relationships built over time among physicians. This primal dynamic is very troublesome to change.
Besides, there are hospital departments with other dynamics posing a major barrier to the implementation of PFCC. One exemplary example is the surgical department, where there is a very high patient turnover level, implying that most of the efforts here were dedicated to medical concerns instead of any other objective. On the other hand, a healthy patient-centered dialogue is akin to the success of PFCC. In this case, when a patient elicits a programmed manner in how they express and speak to the doctor, then the intended goal of having a fruitful conversation is rendered ineffective. The healthcare practitioner cannot convey messages of importance, but the poor conditioning of the patient’s mind acts as a major barrier. Patients happen to extrapolate conversations they have had with doctors and nurses before and take a similar direction in the PFCC process. Among others, this position marks the predicaments that conventional practices and structures bring to the articulation of the PFCC program.
Communication-related Problems
When it comes to communication, there are several dimensions upon which this discussion takes. For instance, there is the case of language differences. This aspect is an old-age challenge, even in the process of delivering ordinary healthcare. Low literacy levels can be the source of the language barrier, although regional differences account for the greater disparity (Clay and Parsh 2016). When language becomes an impediment, the healthcare practitioner and patient cannot have a productive conversation that results in quality health outcomes. This aspect undermines the role that PFCC is geared to attain. In response, healthcare institutions can foresee this problem and make an effort to implement a diversified workforce. This perception is referred to as cultural awareness. There is “the recognition that diverse individuals live and thrive within a cultural context, both inherited and experiential, that is particular to their groups” (Rittle 2015, p. 532). Onwards, when health administrators recognize this element, it means that they have become culturally sensitive. They recognize that beneficial health outcomes are a product of greater attention to cultural contexts. Therefore, in attaining cultural competence, it is assumed that the healthcare workforce is both aware and sensitive about cultural patients’ cultural affiliations.
Communication challenges can also be evident as patients exhibit fear of victimization of else their unwillingness to report unfair treatment. Another perspective is that they can be reluctant to seek clarification or asking questions on a specific idea; they are less knowledgeable. Such circumstances pose major barriers in the quest to expand patient education and their decisions concerning healthcare. Consequently, the nurse-patient relationship is at stake, implying that it becomes amputated in meeting the standards expected in PFCC. Also, the pseudo-conflict that is a result of the nurse-patient misunderstanding contributes to the discrepancy that is evident between nurses and the sick. In such circumstances, that nurse is likely stereotyped limiting their input to the cause. It is up to the administration to establish widespread problems, such as unauthorized fees, that could further misunderstand nurses and patients.
Lack of Goals as well as Insufficient Activities
Goals offer the stakeholders clarity on their intentions. In this regard, every stakeholder in the process, including healthcare administrators, has a keen perception of where their efforts should be directed and the possible outcomes. The same view is siphoned to the PFCC process. Usually, this is not the case with PFCC as the program could lack strategic targets and guidelines, leading to the investment of resources in areas that have minimal impact on the overall quality of healthcare (Frampton et al. 2017). Therefore, hospital managers lack the much-needed thrust on where their intentions should lay. Another problem is accompanying the lack of goals that various professional groups cannot attenuate their actual job descriptions in implementing PFCC. Alternatively, PFCC staff should have specific responsibilities in the program. Onwards, there could also be inconsistency apparent in the patien...