Healthcare and Quality: Perspectives from Nursing

The broad and multidirectional healthcare ecosystem comprises so many aspects that influence its quality. One of these aspects is shaped by nurses who work in close sync with the doctors and patients. It is because of nurses that the chain of communication between the patients and doctors stays steady. Jobs for nurses can contain various responsibilities that at times go unsaid and unnoticed, but the impact can be directly seen on patient care delivery. Since the quality of healthcare is and will always be a matter of high concern, let us dig into some perspectives about it from nurses, who are amongst the close-knit healthcare professionals. 

Purpose of Gathering Nursing Perspective 

It can seem confusing to consider nursing perspectives for healthcare quality, but it makes a lot of sense. Nurses are the medical professionals who, by authority and responsibility, extend most services to patients and their families. At the same time, nurses’ perspective also helps to chalk out potential plans to minimize and get over the loopholes that they feel might be hindering their best performance.   

Nursing Education Affects Healthcare Quality 

Aspiring nurses and professionals who continue their nursing education have determined that the quality of education and skills acquired during undergraduate and graduate programs can go a long way towards setting predetermined healthcare standards.  

In this regard, nursing courses in Canada are well equipped to train nursing graduates in basic bedside decorum, leadership qualities, empathy, professional discipline, etc. Not only is it about the nursing courses in Canada, but also the overall scope of nursing in Canada has been on the rise.  

It is also important that nurses during their education tenure get access to security awareness, skills development, and identify the right attitude that should be carried by a nursing professional. This will help them develop on a personal as well as a professional front. 

It is important to teach aspiring nurses that jobs for nurses are not just limited to providing individual care to patients. It is also about making efforts that can collectively contribute toward a progressive healthcare system. Put simply, nurses should be taught to care about the entire healthcare system and not just their patients. 

Nursing Skills That Impact Healthcare Quality 

There are plenty of skills taught as a part of the programs or nursing courses in Canada. Yet, there are quite a few skills that might not be directly associated with nursing but still impact the profession in so many ways. Let us talk about these skills in brief and discuss how each of them impacts the quality of healthcare from the perspective of nursing. 

1. Problem-Solving: The skill of being a problem solver goes a long way in the profession of nursing. It is more like the art of finding answers when there’s scope for none of them. Acquiring and cultivating problem-solving skills is necessary to overcome patient care and system-wide challenges. 
2. Priority Setting: Jobs for nurses can be quite demanding, yet there needs to be an understanding of priority setting. When there are multiple tasks to be performed, the estimation of performing the most important task first is all about setting priorities. There are many important decisions to be made, but deciding what you’d put first as a nurse makes all the difference. Although this skill is taught as a part of many nursing courses in Canada the concept can at times be unclear until learned by being in an actual professionally run environment.  
3. Delegation: Jobs for nurses demand delegation on multiple levels. Nurses must realize early in their professional journey that they must not try to handle every duty by themselves but must delegate. Duties associated with patient care must be delegated to maintain and improve the scope of productivity.  Delegation of nursing tasks carries more than one benefit . It helps to free up some time by dividing the work amongst the other team members, thereby resulting in addressing all the issues with less stress and delay. The concept of delegation is often taught as a part of nursing courses in Canada and should be practiced in real-time scenarios as well. 
4. Interactions & Collaborations: Little do we realize that communication is key to avoiding hard consequences and assumptions. The profession of nursing requires active interactions and collaborations to keep intact the essence of important information about certain patient cases. What nurses are taught as a part of their education and nursing courses in Canada should be implemented in the actual working environments so that the nurses feel confident to freely express themselves to their teams. Collaborations here would state that, wherever required and possible, nurses should collaborate to come together as a team and do the needful for optimal patient care delivery. The more we evolve in terms of encouraging interactions and collaborations, the better nursing work environments will be. 
5. Decision-Making: A healthcare system works best when there are healthcare professionals with sound critical - thinking skills. They can critically analyze and further give rise to good decision-making. Irrespective of being a nurse, every healthcare professional should be well equipped with quality decision-making abilities. Primarily in nursing, decision-making is put to best use when the nurses are representing a patient and need to address their needs. Exceptional decision-making skills are also recognized when nurses can decide the best possible patient care treatment based on a doctor’s diagnosis and directions. 

Conclusion 

A progressive healthcare system is one where nurses, doctors, and all healthcare professionals are well-informed and well-aware of the fact that, together, they can all bring a much-needed difference. The above-stated skills happen to be present and underlying, but more active work on replenishing them can make a big difference in the present as well as the future fate of global healthcare. Efficient leadership, educators, and cooperative staff members are some of the elements that can shape progressive healthcare. Not to forget, it is about time that we work towards achievable goals and uproot the healthcare systems across the world by bringing a wave of change. There’s always a stepping stone to be laid, and it can start from even the small steps that we all take.