Concept 1: Communication
In nursing, communication plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality of care. Therefore, it is among the core competencies that professional nurses should exhibit throughout their careers. Communication refers to exchanging ideas, reasoning, and information in various ways, such as written, body language, or verbal (AACN, 2021). this competence is related to nursing professionals in an essential way because it is a primary element in all parts of their practice. Communication aids nurses in performing precise, reliable, and easy nursing work, guaranteeing the patient’s fulfillment and safeguarding the health experts. Thus, when nurses are not trained to have good communication abilities, they may end up experiencing immense challenges that can alter their individual and work life. Therefore, as stated by Kaur (2020), having effective communication among nursing professionals is crucial in ensuring high-quality care delivery and individualized care.
When working as a nurse student, one must consider the opportunities available during practice to ensure they utilize interprofessional communication to enhance patient health outcomes. In nursing, one must work hand in hand with other healthcare professionals to ensure that they provide efficient and quality care; therefore, communication will play a great part in this to be effective. While working as a nurse student, the clinical rotations required interacting with other professionals such as therapists, physicians, and social workers. Through effective communication, patient care plans can easily be followed, and every staff understands their role to the patient. For example, when dealing with a patient with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the nurse should work closely with the therapist and physicians in the establishment and follow up on the individual care plan by including lifestyle modifications, breathing exercises, and medications. This will only be achieved through proper and professional communication to ensure patient healthcare needs are met and improved.
Competence 2: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Nursing professionals must serve all patients that come to the hospital for their services. Thus, having the DEI concept in their expertise could play a crucial role in ending the associated biases. DEI problem is always related to individual biases, particularly those entrenched in their life situations that they are not aware of. This makes it difficult for people to advocate for what they do not understand, making them continue to know that they are separate and different. AACN (2021) stated that while diversity involves individuals from various backgrounds, equity refers to identifying that everyone has different situations and respecting that by distributing chances and resources to permit them to attain a similar result. Inclusion is intentionally establishing a respectful and protected ecosystem for every professional and patient. DEI is essential in nursing because it allows nurses to benefit from exposure to differences among other staff and makes patients comfortable, fosters respect despite varying perspectives, and eliminates prejudices and stereotyping among the staff.
The American healthcare system has faced diversity challenges for a long time; although they have significantly developed, the field is still not diversified as required. Iheduru‐Anderson et al. (2021) state that in the current healthcare system, seventy-five percent of the registered nurses are white, and ninety-one percent are female. Another instance is described by Syntia Munung et al. (2022), claiming that the accessibility to life-saving medications is a major challenge because expensive drugs are available to people with outstanding insurance coverage and a great bank account. At the same time, those with jobs that do not provide prescription coverage are not accessible. Therefore, it is important to allow patients and nursing staff to have a voice in providing and receiving care, inspire diversity and promote equity.
Competence 3: Compassionate Care
Offering patient care is part of the nurse’s professional role in the healthcare environment. Care can occur differently; however, compassionate care is a crucial principle in individual-centered care. Compassion is when an individual identifies, understands, and emotionally resonates with another person who issues pain or feelings. AACN (2021) stated that compassionate care is a method nurses use with patients. It comprises identifying their susceptibility, feelings, and experiences and that they will behave and act in a way that is reasonable for them. This concept relates to nursing because of its significant benefits to the patient and the nurse. For instance, providing compassionate care to patients will directly impact the quality of care offered because it will result in improved patient fulfillment, an increase in confidence, safer care delivery, and also efficiency to nurses through enhancing the patients’ coping abilities.
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a significant shift in how nurses care for patients. While working as a nurse student during the pandemic, there was a need to give the patients time and compassion in every step of their recovery because of the intense tension available during that time. One-way compassionate care was provided to patients during that time was by acknowledging patients’ feelings and expressing empathy. For instance, a certain patient experienced delayed surgery, and as a nurse, there was a need to apologize for the waiting time; this helps enhance their comfort level. Other ways of demonstrating personal interest to the patient. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in pressure and tension, and patients were not allowed to interact with their family members because of the spread; therefore, conversing with them was a way of creating trust. Checking them in their isolation room and learning about their life was a great move to give them hope.
Competence 4: Evidence-Based Practice
The practice involves a problem-solving method in care delivery that incorporates the best available evidence from studies and patient data that involves the clinician’s professionalism and patient partialities and principles (AACN, 2021). this is related to nursing extensively because nurses have the most contact with patients and recognize their physical, emotional, and mental situations. Aside from nurses utilizing one method to treat all patients, they can use their scientific acquittances to acknowledge the best care methods available. The healthcare sector is changing to value-based care; therefore, this competence will be crucial to nurses in accepting new procedures informed by their research and assisting them in developing research and clinical expertise.
Nurses can integrate studies with practice to establish an effective standard of care processes developed on evidence. Various evidence-based practices are already implemented and produce efficient patient health outcomes. For instance, Falcone et al. (2020) explained the interventions to enhance immunizations in Florida, where a healthcare facility supporting the uninsured provided free flu injections to the patients, although immunization rates were still low. An investigation study was conducted in 2020 to identify the intervention that would enhance the immunization rate. The conclusion indicated that integrating improved access, suitable communication, and an effective workflow would be successful. After the health facility implemented this, they observed a more than five hundred percent rise in immunization rates.
Competence 5: Health Policy
Although nurses are essential in care delivery, health policies, such as the patients and health providers, are always established to shape the whole healthcare scene. AACN (2021) posits that health policy comprises objective-directed choices regarding health due to the permitted public decision maki g procedures. Therefore, nurses are crucial in advocating for health policies that positively affect their patients and the field of nursing expertise, particularly when cooperating on challenges they encounter during their practice. Since these policies shapes and directs how health care is offered and accessed, it is always aspiring because it is created to guide healthcare professionals in the results they are aiming for.
Moreover, health policies assist in illustrating priorities, thus creating duties and prospects for various health personnel, including nurses. Nevertheless, the role of nurses in creating health policy cannot be ignored because they play a vital part in the implementation of the policies and also can influence other health systems and firms to offer improved health results to patients. Nurses are the ones that interact with patients more; hence, they have a big part in interpreting the big-picture of the policies and processes into one-on-one patient relations. By relating more with patients, nurses are the ones that recognize the needs of patients and can know what can be working and what is not hence shaping the policy.
Recognizing the implications of health policies during practice is vital. Thus, by learning nursing ethics and law, one can better understand the role of health policies and their effect on safeguarding patient rights and how nurses and other health professionals should observe these laws. For example, a nurse professional should observe the rules and policies by documenting patient evaluations, getting informed consent before taking health procedures such as surgery and recognizing the implications of carelessness and malpractice. Health policies aid in maintaining the quality of care by ensuring that nurses attain some certifications before attending to patients.
References
AACN (2021). The Essentials: core competencies for professional nursing education. American Association of Colleges of Nursing. https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/AcademicNursing/pdf/Essentials-2021.pdf
Falcone, A. L., Vess, J., & Johnson, E. (2020). Evidence-based interventions cause multifold increases in influenza immunization rates in a free clinic. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(12), 817-823. https://doi.org/10.1097/JXX.0000000000000302
Iheduru‐Anderson, K., Shingles, R. R., & Akanegbu, C. (2021). The discourse of race and racism in nursing: An integrative review of the literature. Public Health Nursing, 38(1), 115-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.12828
Kaur, B. (2020). Interpersonal communications in nursing practice-key to quality health care. Archives of Nursing Practice and Care, 6(1), 019-022. https://doi.org/10.17352/2581-4265.000044
Syntia Munung, N., Ujewe, S. J., & Afolabi, M. O. (2022). Priorities for global access to life-saving interventions during public health emergencies: Crisis nationalism, solidarity or charity? Global public health, 17(9), 1785-1794. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1977973
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