Observed Healthcare Setting
The healthcare setting chosen to observe staff in the delivery of nursing care is the nursing care home. Nurses delivered personalized primary care to patients, paying significant attention to establishing a positive relationship with them. There are named nurses responsible for the care delivery to an individual patient and their family. These nurses closely collaborate with members of the interprofessional team to promote quick and sturdier patient recovery. It is worth mentioning that nurses spend some part of their working time communicating with patients and their families rather than solely performing specific job tasks. The patient-centered approach to care and independent decision-making to which nurses are empowered makes one think that the primary nursing care model was observed at the given healthcare establishment.
Primary Nursing Care Model
The primary nursing care model focuses on the optimization of relationship-based care. It has been proven that this model of care has a beneficial impact on both patients and nursing staff (Mattila et al., 2014). A remarkably strong positive correlation between primary nursing and patient satisfaction was discovered in the context of maternity care. In particular, nurse-patient relationships, social support, and continuity of care were among the positive factors associated with the chosen nursing care model. Positive effects of primary nursing on the staff include an increased sense of job control and independence in decision-making.
Team-Based Nursing Care Model
In a team-based nursing care model, a small group of healthcare professionals, including nurses, takes care of patients. This model may be helpful in the social reorganization of nursing work in acute care settings. In particular, it has been shown that the introduction of a team-based nursing care model led to a successful redesign of the RN-based staffing model to a functional team (Mackinnon, Butcher, & Bruce, 2018). This strategy provided for the effective distribution of tasks that should be performed by RNs and LPNs collaboratively. Principles that guide the chosen nursing care model encourage team unity and support standards of holistic care. However, it is expected that the use of team approaches may appear to be less effective in fact-paced environments.
Implementation of Nursing Care Models
If appropriately established, the team-based nursing care model may improve unit culture and team cohesion by promoting interprofessional collaboration. An example of how this model can be implemented to enhance the quality of care includes the organization of the nursing basis into small teams of RNs and LPNs (Hastings, Suter, Bloom, & Sharma, 2016). They will be responsible for taking care of a portion of patients on the unit. Small team leaders need to be identified to oversee the rest of the team members. Patient safety can be enhanced through interprofessional collaboration on practice problems. For example, a solution to the alarming number of drug administration errors can be pre-medication counseling, which requires the involvement of all healthcare professionals in the development of a plan and task delegation.
Conclusion
In summary, nursing care models are frameworks that are used to represent various concepts of care delivery. Primary care and team-based care are traditional nursing care models. At the center of a primary nursing care model, there is a nurse-patient relationship that a nurse is required to sustain. In turn, a team-based nursing care model provides for a strategic redistribution of tasks among healthcare professionals. The choice of a nursing care model mostly depends on a healthcare setting and the desired objectives.
References:
Hastings, S. E., Suter, E., Bloom, J., & Sharma, K. (2016). Introduction of a team-based care model in a general medical unit. BMC Health Services Research, 16(245), 1-12.
Mackinnon, K., Butcher, D. L., & Bruce, A. (2018). Working to full scope: The reorganization of nursing work in two Canadian community hospitals. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 5(1), 1-14.
Mattila, E., Pitkänen, A., Alanen, S., Leino, K., Luojus, K., Rantanen, A., & Aalto, P. (2014). The effects of the primary nursing care model: A systematic review. Journal of Nursing & Care, 3(6), 1-12.