Priority: Identification of the Influence of Nursing on Important Healthcare Decisions at all Levels
Healthcare reforms remain to be one of the most pertinent factors in the healthcare realm. Evidently, nurses as part of the healthcare professionals play a crucial role in enhancing healthcare reforms that are aimed at enhancing the quality of care for patients. Researches carried out in the recent past indicate that nurses have a significant influence on important healthcare decisions.
Benefits
According to Drennan et al., (2011), involvement of nurses in various healthcare decisions is a crucial step towards the realization of healthcare reforms. This may be accredited to the fact that enhanced quality of care as one of the healthcare reform indicators often falls on the continuum of nursing. Nurses play an integral role in offering care to hospitalized patients. This depicts the manner in which nurse’s involvement in decision-making provides a comprehensive platform that enhances hospitals efforts to improve quality. In addition, quality improvement in the healthcare contexts requires a hospital culture that is supportive.
As such, engagement of nurses creates a supportive hospital culture that is beneficial for quality improvement in the healthcare context. It is also essential to note that nurses pose more influence in promoting patient safety, reducing medical errors, improving wellness, promoting healthcare efficiency, expanding preventive care, reducing cost, increasing access to care, and coordinating care throughout the healthcare system (Wilson et al., 2010). This analysis justifies the fact that it is beneficial to involve nurses in decision-making at all healthcare levels.
Challenges
While it is true that nurses have a critical influence on decision-making across various healthcare levels, it is of the essence to note that efforts to ensure this are clouded by a wider array of challenges. More importantly, scarcity of nursing resources make it challenging to engage nurse’s at all healthcare levels (Browne et al., 2010). Resources to engage nurses in various healthcare tasks ranging from troublesome data collection and reporting to bed-management remain scarce. In addition, traditional nursing education jeopardizes nurse involvement in decision-making at all healthcare levels. The traditional nursing education does not prepare nurses for evolving roles that are significantly evident in the contemporary healthcare context.
Conclusion
It is evident that nurses are the key caregivers in various hospitals. As a result nurses can play a considerable role in influencing the quality of care, which is a significant indicator of healthcare reform. In conclusion, the pursuit for enhanced healthcare delivery calls for the involvement of nurses in various decision-making matters.
References
Browne, A., Doane, G., Reimer, J., MacLeod, M., and McLellan, E. (2010). Public Health Nursing Practice With ‘High Priority’ Families: The Significance of Contextualizing ‘Risk’. Nursing Inquiry, 17(1), p26-37.
Drennan, V., Goodman, C., Manthorpe, J., Davies, S., Scott, C., Gage, H., and Iliffe, S. (2011). Establishing New Nursing Roles: A Case Study of the English Community Matron Initiative. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20(19/20), p2948- 2957.
Wilson, S., Ramelet, A., and Zuiderduyn, S. (2010). Research Priorities for Nursing Care of Infants, Children, and Adolescents: A West Australian Delphi Study. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19(13/14), p1919-1928.
