Article Review
ARTICLE REVIEW
The article titled as “How nurses and their work environment affect patient experiences of the quality of care: a qualitative study” explains how incorporating different elements of patient care in the nursing practice can influence the level of patient satisfaction and help in promoting better healthcare. The article is based on a qualitative research performed on four groups of nursing professionals. The study design consisted of twenty six registered nurses responsible for providing utmost level of patient care in a hospital setting. The interviews conducted with these nurses were recorded and later transcribed for a thorough analysis.
The nurses, in the interview, discussed about certain elements whose inclusion in the nursing practice can improve the nursing care quality. These elements are-
Good working relationships
Providing autonomy to the nurse practitioners
Proper staffing
Controlled nursing practice
Support of the managers
Patient centric work culture
The nurses even mentioned some limiting factors which pose as an inhibition to their role. These factors are:
Cost effectiveness policy
Transparency goals
These factors have a role towards the external accountability of the nurses. The nurses often feel themselves under pressure when they have to report a higher workload to the administration along with demonstrating increase in term of productivity. The nurses are of the view that these limiting factors will not allow the nursing practice to flourish properly and to provide good nursing care to the patients (Kieft, de Brouwer, Francke & Delnoij, 2014).
Therefore, as per the article says, competent nursing staff can improve the quality of health care, it can be said that increase in the nursing staff can help in improving overall patient care. But it is also important to ensure that the staff is efficient enough and is highly dedicated to the work.
A good staff, especially nursing staff can help in improving the quality of healthcare provided in a hospital. Increase in the efficient nurses can help in improving the nurse- patient ratio of a hospital. This will in turn improve the quality of care provided by the nurse and hence reduce the number of hospital related mortality.
References
Kieft, R., de Brouwer, B., Francke, A., & Delnoij, D. (2014). How nurses and their work environment affect patient experiences of the quality of care: a qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research, 14(1), 249. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-249
