Introduction
Nursing is a very critical process, which requires a lot of care, attention, accuracy, and dedication. It is a scientific, client-oriented, systematic, and goal-oriented approach, where the nurse and the client work together to ensure quality health care is provided. Moreover, it is a continuous process that a nurse has to take until a particular problem is solved completely or the person with the problem is satisfied. The nurse has to provide a solution to the problem through proper examining, studying, and understanding the problem from several perspectives. The nurses are required to observe a systematic procedure at all times. They are supposed to be people of great concern and care in every process and situation they are involved in. This paper looks at the roles played by nurses as well as how they help in avoiding the error of medication.
Nurse as a designer of care
The nurse has to take of a certain design to provide proper care. The nursing process involves a lot of complex knowledge applications where the nurse has to use his or her nursing professional knowledge and experience to deliver quality care. There are new technologies that are currently growing in the health industry, which require the nurses to be updated at all times. For example, the introduction of e-health systems in most hospitals has influenced the design of care taken by nurses. E-health system helps in keeping electronic health records, prescription ordering, and providing medical knowledge bases, as well as clinical decision support. Nurses are knowledge-intensive and they are primary professionals in health care organizations. They are required to take new nursing knowledge and experience that can be acquired through various net-enabled applications or the Internet. Recently, a growing interest in the electronic health (e-health) concept is causing significant changes in the health care environment (Hsia, Lin, Wu, and Tsai, 2006).
It means that the nurse understands all the systems involved in providing proper health care, as a designer. Nurses undertake and supervise all the steps that the system of e-health takes. This means that the work is properly controlled since it involves both the nurse and the electronic system. The nurse’s role is to continue making new goals, insert new interventions, make new plans, and evaluate the process to provide quality work. Doing all these processes in the right manner ensures client satisfaction and eventually restores health. A good design will always ensure the nurse and clients work together as partners to promote health and prevent further diseases. The design of the nursing process should therefore be redesigned spontaneously to suit the current and most needed priorities (Kowalski and Rosdahi, 2008).
Nurse as a coordinator of care
Coordination is the most important process in every institution. It is the act of linking people’s activities so that the process of nursing attains the organization’s objectives. It is more important in health organizations since they are usually categorized into a different departments. Nurses provide two categories of coordination; preventive and regulatory coordination. Preventive coordination is when one practices some activities that help in preventing the occurrence of problems such as medication errors. Regulatory coordination occurs when a nurse focuses on maintaining the structural and functional organization of the health care institution. The nurse acts as the central coordinator between the management, doctors, administration staff, and the client to ensure an effective running of the organization. Considering errors like medication, the nurses identify and present the error then correct the error quickly (Basavanthappa, 2000).
Nurses are playing a very big role in terms of coordination including planning for interdisciplinary conferences within their organization. Such conferences are very important tools that boost nurses’ coordination with other health disciplines. They get to share their nursing care and interact with other members of the organization as well as evaluate effectiveness in their responsibilities (Kowalski and Rosdahi, 2008).
Nurse as a manager of care
The management role of a nurse is a process that involves the coordination of human and material resources towards the accomplishment of certain objectives. In this case, nurses provide management by securing maximum prosperity and results for the happiness of the employer, other employees, and clients. Nurses do understand that they have to give the public the best service they can. The nurse manager can assist the staff to think strategically about what they should be doing for clients (Basavanthappa, 2000). Indeed, the management of the nursing process is a key element in ensuring that the role of the nurse is done efficiently. Through proper management, it is obvious that planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and reporting is made easier (Basavanthappa, 2000).
Managing knowledge of medical professionals within health care organizations is critical to prospering in competitive e-health environments. The self-management model has increased work satisfaction through coordination of care and teamwork. Nevertheless, the nurse’s management role is always aimed at improving the standards for patient-care quality (Hsia, Lin, Wu, and Tsai, 2006).
Conclusion
The nursing process is a process that requires proper planning, organization, coordination, as well as good management from every nurse or any other health care worker. Planning a nursing process helps in providing guidelines for the provision of good nursing care. The nursing process has specific roles that aim at minimizing or reducing errors of medication that may occur. Moreover, nurses need to organize social meetings such as interdisciplinary conferences to enable them to cement effective teamwork in their organization.
References
Basavanthappa, B T. (2000). Nursing administration. New Delhi: Jaypee brothers medical publishers (p) ltd.
Hsia, T., Lin, L.., Wu, J., & Tsai, H. (2006). A Framework for Designing Nursing Knowledge Management Systems: Interdisciplinary. Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, Vol. 1. Web.
Kowalski, M. T., & Rosdahi, B.C. (2008). Textbook of Basic Nursing; Philadelphia: Lippincott Company.