Practicing nurses within the frameworks of the average modern day healthcare environment, face increasingly complex ethical and moral dilemma. Nurses face such dilemmas in situations where they are incapable of doing the right thing due to diverse cultural values and beliefs of other medical practitioners. Nurses play a basic role in the advancement of the health of individuals. The nursing profession is meant to help patients. Everyone needs some form of health care service at a point in their lives. Usually, within health care facilities, nurses work in shifts in order to ensure patients are taken care of during the day and at night as well. Nurses, therefore, require support from the general medical practitioners in order to uphold their care for the patients. Various forms of support provided by medical practitioners to nursing staff are associated with improved patient outcomes and increased nurse satisfaction. This paper outlines various forms of support that the general medical practitioners give to nursing staff so as to improve their professionalism. An organizational structure that encourages moral support to nurses is discussed. The advantages of the support given to the nursing staff by the general medical practitioners are also outlined.
Nursing staff work within a system that involves constant interactions with patients, members of their families, and other, related systems within the healthcare environment on an everyday basis. The constant interactions may lead to conflicts, stress, strain, and ambiguity in the system. Nursing staff need guidance and support from their peers, seniors and the general medical practitioners both at fundamental and at higher levels to support their practices. Nurses who are given support practice medical advocacy in their patients’ best interests hence experience desirable outcomes. A supportive environment is essential for the healthcare institutions since nurses often assume the role of serving as role models and advocates to patients. These responsibilities exist in all the settings of a healthcare environment. Supporting nurses can take several forms such as; providing them with an enabling working environment, offering them moral support and also enhancing communication within the institution. Training nursing staff to enhance their skills and professional expertise, providing them with a good leadership structure and giving them technological support to enable them to work more efficiently and effectively, among others is also ways of supporting the nursing staff. Nurses who are supported are in a position to overcome their fears and further to respond appropriately to situations at hand, acting in the best interest of the patients. The general nursing practitioners can better support nursing staff in their practices through various ways as discussed in this paper.
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The healthcare management can enhance sound communication within the healthcare institution hence providing better support to nursing staff in their practices. Effective communication enables nursing staff to present their opinions and makes them feel that they are heard and appreciated. Promoting effective communication enables the nurses to share and discuss problems that they encounter and which are beyond their ability to solve, with regards to the chain of command. Healthcare management can foster open dialog where nurses share what hinders them from reaching their full potential. Suggestions shared by nursing staff on the improvement of the quality care of patients should be put into action by the management. Nurses are often confronted with situations that are fraughted with difficulties in their practices. Effective communication favorably positions nurses to share information pertaining occupational difficulties with other general medical practitioners who in turn, may make their own contributions towards resolving the problems at hand. Assertive communication is imperative to invoking the chain of command and to quality patient care and patient safety. A good communication system in the medical facility gives nurses moral courage to share whichever escalating issues they encounter in their practices. Nurses are, therefore, able to speak out and to do the right thing before the forces that would have led them to do otherwise (Phillips, Hebish, Mann, Ching, & Blackmore, 2016). Communication is key in improving patients’ safety and quality care. Nurses are always with the patients most of the time in their duties hence they are the ones who can get to know the complaints and suggestions of the patients. If nurses can share their suggestions with other medical practitioners and with the health care management, the institution benefits. Patients are also in a position to benefit since their needs can be met through implementation of their suggestions.
Collaborative efforts that enable doctors and nurses to work together on the achievement of a common goal is another form of provision of better support to the nursing staff. Cooperation among the nurses in their practices also provides support to the nursing staff and enhances the quality of patient care. Doctors can establish a positive collaborative relationship with nurses so as to garner the kind of support needed for provision of better services. Both parties can perform common practices and strategies and come up with a common objective that helps in the achievement of the set goals. The results of collaboration between nurses and doctors far outweigh those of the cooperation among the nursing staff themselves alone. Careful communication among the two parties, provision of ongoing reports relating to the procedures involved, and seeking of imputes where required are essential aspects for the success of the collaboration (Shirey, Eright & McDANIEL, 2013). Collaboration between doctors and nurses is important since it aligns the parties’ interests, by so doing avoids conflict. However, Nursing staff and medical practitioners can face many barriers when working in collaboration. Concurrently, the two parties can overcome these barriers and enhance the collaborative relationship through the clarification of roles, negotiation, and by innovatively working around organizational impediments. Therefore, collaboration involves working around undesirable aspects and the use of facilitators to establish long-term collaborative practices (Moote, Krsek, Kleinpell, & Todd, 2011).
A supportive organizational structure enables the nurses to perform their practices effectively hence improving the quality of patients care. A healthy organizational structure creates a context for actualizing moral support to nurses. A good organizational structure includes values, mission, vision and philosophy of nursing departments that are clearly understandable to nurses, hence creating a supportive working environment. Clearly stated values, vision and mission suggests activities that enable the organization to meet its set goals and objective, encourages nurses to work towards these goals, and encourages commitment to the improvement of the nursing practices. A well-developed nursing philosophy gives a description of acceptable nursing behavior that helps in the achievement of the organizational set goals and objectives. Clear vision and mission are essential to the achievement of quality patient care in the contemporary, complex medical environment. With good organizational values, nurses can carry out their practices with minimal difficulties (Wong, Cummings & Ducharme, 2013).
Provision of adequate medical equipment and training of the nursing staff on how to use the equipment and relevant technology is another form of support that medical practitioners can apply to their interactions with nursing staff. A nursing staff that has adequate skills and knowledge on the use of technological appliances for medical procedures can work with ease and reduce mistakes. Other medical practitioners can train the nurses on the appropriate use of these pieces of equipment through organizing training and education sessions with regards to the use of such types of equipment. This enables nurses to work effectively and efficiently hence improving their satisfaction and consequently, their discharge of professional duties. Technology allows nurses to have quick access to accurate information concerning medical histories which assures of safety in medical practice.
The use of technology enables nurses to get quick alerts through a configured system that notifies them of certain dangers the patients may face and reports on the patients’ adherence to prescriptive medication. This increases the safety of the patients since also the possibility of wrong diagnoses and prescriptions is reduced. The use of clinical computer tablets enables data sharing to become more prevalent across health care institutions hence enhancing reimbursement structures and improving patient outcomes. Nurses can also be trained on the safety measures that they should take when using the technological, medical appliances. This kind of training equips them with skills to keep themselves and their patients safe. Moreover, this prevents the nurses from contracting contagious diseases as they come into contact with afflicted patients and prevents the nurses from spreading the diseases to other patients through the medical appliances.
Changes in the healthcare industry have impacted nurses both positively and negatively. The negative impacts are brought about by the shift in autonomy, income changes, and social stature changes. Ill-equipped and overwhelmed nurses face frustrations and work for long hours and are often not compensated for their assistance. Organizational management can get to the bottom of these issues and support the nurses so as to improve their efficiency at work. Well-paid nurses are motivated to provide the best care to patients. On the contrary, overworked nurses are often tired and unable to offer quality services to the patients. Setting meaningful measurements and proper supports to data analysis gives nurses the morale to work to the best of their abilities. Creating a supportive structure and aligning resources that provide adequate infrastructure within the institution encourages effective practices within the nursing community. Thus, the management should create trust and deliver upon its promises to nurses.
Nurse leaders give nursing staff moral support and courage when they advocate for good working environments that improve patients’ safety and quality care. The leaders can also stand firmly for the nurses in opposition of layoffs and reductions in the healthcare facilities, and the opposition of cost containment measures. They might as well advocate for an enabling medical environment that will eradicate the jeopardy of patients’ safety as posed by incompetent nurses. (Falker & Sledge, 2011). Nurse leaders can provide clear guidelines for the nurses through the creation of an environment that supports moral courage to the nursing stuff. The guidelines can be used to report observed unethical practices that hinder the nursing staff from achieving their objectives. Nurse leaders can also provide resources that include but are not limited to shared governance structures, mentoring opportunities geared at enabling nurses to deal with any ethical dilemma, and ethics committees, so as to enhance their practices. Nurse leaders can act as role models of ethical behavior by establishing nursing practice standards. Nurses who demonstrate moral courage and uphold ethical principles ought to be recognized, and awarded so as to encourage the practices (Eneh & Kvist, 2012). Nurse leaders are the thermostat that governs the entire mood of the nursing staff. Therefore, they should follow their rules and guidelines and treat their staff with respect, and should not show frustrations or make negative comments, seeing as this will break their guidelines, and the team will probably follow suit.
The general medical practitioners can support nurses through a positive influence that is built on credibility, trust, and competence. Medical practitioners can encourage the nursing staff to facilitate change in solving issues of their practice by altering their thoughts, beliefs, and actions. A group of doctors and leading nurses can assist in decision making by backing a suggestion with facts and building a case for the desired change whilst maintaining the best interest of the nurses and the patients. In extreme cases, they can persuade the nurses to do their practices in a certain manner hence leading to the success of an initiative. Medical practitioners can also set good examples for the nursing staff by working efficiently and effectively, practicing punctuality and giving best treatments to patients. The nurses can therefore, emulate the medical practitioners in offering quality patient care and safety (Henderson, Burmeister, Schoonbeek, Ossenberg, & Gneilding, 2014).
Nurses often experience trauma resulting from deteriorating health conditions, some of which lead up to the death of the patients in question. However, the interaction with their patients is still maintained both in ambulatory and acute settings and even under home care. Over time, nurses take care of patients within a family framework that may be surrounded by anticipatory loss, disbelief, physical disfigurement and tension. In an acute setting, nurses are responsible in spite of day and night for the care of the patients and the management of the response of the family to the general trajectory of the sickness. Most times, nurses cannot abandon the situation after the occurrence of death of the patient they were taking care of. Nurses, therefore, go through a difficult time due to the attachments that are created with the patients before their death. With this entire trauma, support of nursing staff by medical practitioners is essential. In such situations, it is advisable for nurses to be given some days off from work in order that they may be allowed emotional relief.
A comfortable working environment can be provided by the healthcare management to the nursing staff in a given healthcare facilities in various ways. These include; providing the nursing staff with serviced meal cards as a form of reward for their humanitarian efforts besides the provision of infrastructure that nurses require to perform their operations. The nursing staff can also be provided with comfortable scrubs that enable them to move around with ease. A reliable transport system that brings nurses to work and takes them home, ensures punctuality of the nurses and eliminates inconveniences that may arise due to traffic and poor weather conditions. Nurses can also be provided with housing units in a case where they have to reside near the hospital. Healthcare management can offer incentives to nurses as a token of appreciation for the work that they do. The motivation of nurses is key towards ensuring the improvement and maintenance of high standards of the nursing practice. Nursing staff can be given shopping vouchers on an annual basis to cater for part of the costs from their official holidays. Holiday treats enable the nursing staff to bond with other medical practitioners hence ensuring the creation of a collaborative relationship (Henderson, Schoonbeek & Auditore, 2013).
Healthcare management can help nursing staff to maintain their accountability on the patients whom they handle. Nurses should have a maximum limit of patients that they should handle in a day so as not to overwork them. Having to deal with too many patients can compromise the ability of a nurse to offer quality patient care. Healthcare management should, therefore, set a limit of the number of patients that a nurse should handle. Nurses can also be provided with off days to enable them to have time for bonding with their friends and families. One day off in a week enables a nurse to have a break from the hospital environment. As such he can gather energy so as to return to work fresh enough. Organizations that do not provide nurses with off days offer poor quality services to patients since the nurses are overworked. Nurses can be given medical covers by the health care medical practitioners such that they are treated for free whenever they fall sick. Any such cover encourages them to provide quality care to the patients since the nurses feel motivated. Giving discounts on treatment and purchasing of drugs to nursing staff and their families encourage the nurses to work hard and improve their practices. Points earned according to work done by the nurses are redeemed during their treatment hence they pay fewer amounts. These enable the nurses to work to the best of their abilities to earn as many points as possible hence offering the best services to patients.
Furthering education is something that almost every nurse looks forward to. A management system can provide nursing staff with the opportunities to further their education through financially supporting them and providing them with scholarships. Nurses who wish to further their education can be allowed to work part-time so as to give them time to attend classes and study. Highly educated nurses are rich of knowledge and skills of providing quality care to the patients. Other medical practitioners can take the place of the absent nurse who has gone for a class to eliminate any inconveniences brought about by the absenteeism of the nurse. A medical facility that has a highly educated nursing staff operates efficiently and effectively to provide patients with safety and quality care. The nurses can work in the required manner with minimal supervision (Henderson & Eaton, 2013).
Supporting nursing staff in their practices is essential in ensuring quality patients' care and safety. General medical practitioners can provide support to the patients in various ways. There are various nursing staff support groups that have emerged to provide assistance in the management of ambiguity, conflict, strain and ambiguity in the nursing staff system. Provision of reliable and effective communication measures provides support to nurses as it encourages sharing of information of the nursing staff with other medical practitioners. Collaboration with medical practitioners enables nursing staff to reduce the risks involved in their practices. Provision of further education to the nursing staff enables nurses to acquire useful knowledge and skills that improve their practices. A supportive organizational structure aligns the institutional objectives with the objectives of the nursing staff. Good leadership of the nursing staff influences the nurses to work to the best of their abilities in the provision of quality patient care. The motivation of the nursing staff through provision of incentives and facilitation increases the ability of workers to provide safety to patients. Training on use of technological, medical appliances ensures accuracy and efficiency of the nursing staff in their practices. A supportive environment for the nursing staff is an important aspect of a healthcare institution.
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