In nursing, the perception of patients is identified as the patient’s reality. Patients’ view of the care provided acts as a fundamental pointer of excellence and has become significant for quality enhancement. Every patient in search of medical services desires not only personalized, first-rate care, but also comfort, which is a significant area of concern for nurses and other health professionals (Grøndahl et al., 2018). The patient’s perception is highly subjective and relies on individual judgment in relation to one’s anticipations.
The patient’s reality, an approach of knowing in nursing, conforms to a subjective paradigm of the world since the individual rate of satisfaction is hard to measure and classify. Focusing on the notion of patients’ perception has resulted in the misrepresentation of a patient as a customer while mischaracterizing nurses as zombies (Chan, Wong, Cheung, & Lam, 2018). Shockingly, some health institutions are advertising new vacancies of nurses as for the ones who have excellent customer-service proficiencies.
Taking patients to be customers and treasuring their perceptions of care has made health facilities to be embedded in the cultural ideation that a client is at all times right. Nevertheless, the truth is that a patient is not always correct. Patients do not have the training, knowledge, skills, and professional experiences that nurses have (Berkowitz, 2016). Altering practices of care providers or sacking nurses based on the perceptions of patients is tantamount to equating comfort with quality of care, which is not the case. Some hospitals have been found to provide poor care to patients, yet their perception towards such facilities is high.
Patients’ perception of the care given has become an essential indicator of excellence and considerable for quality enhancement. Nevertheless, it is highly subjective and depends on individual opinion in line with one’s expectations. If health institutions value the contribution of nurses and better their working conditions instead of relying on patients’ reality, the quality of care will improve.
References
Berkowitz, B. (2016). The patient experience and patient satisfaction: Measurement of a complex dynamic. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1), Manuscript 1. Web.
Chan, E. A., Wong, F., Cheung, M. Y., & Lam, W. (2018). Patients’ perceptions of their experiences with nurse-patient communication in oncology settings: A focused ethnographic study. PloS One, 13(6), 1-17. Web.
Grøndahl, V. A., Kirchhoff, J. W., Andersen, K. L., Sørby, L. A., Andreassen, H. M., Skaug, E. A.,… Helgesen, A. K. (2018). Health care quality from the patients’ perspective: A comparative study between an old and a new, high-tech hospital. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 11, 591-600. Web.