Introduction
Nurses are an integral part of health care systems. In addition to providing basic medical care to patients, they monitor patients’ health status and provide assistance and education to help individuals recover and live healthily. This is a role often underplayed or not well-understood, with many patients believing that nurses perform nothing beyond a doctors’ orders. It’s not a surprise that doctors usually make treatment plans, however, it is the nurse that is in most constant communication with patients; thus, their monitoring, intervention and education are crucial for effective care outcomes.
Understanding Patient Health Outcomes
Patient health outcome are the consequences of care processes in an individual patients health. Recovery, survival rate and health status after a specific health intervention are among few examples. There is strong relation between the nature of patient health outcome and quality of health care, hence, to a significant part the nature of patient outcome depends on the way and accuracy of implementation of care process (that depends on nurse’s skills and expertise). For that reason nursing assignment services have influence over the patient health outcome. The nursing process includes observation, assessment, intervention, evaluation and is carried out by nurses in order to achieve specific positive changes in patients’ health outcome.
Continuous Monitoring and Early Intervention
Among numerous contributions made by nurses in improving patient health outcomes, their most valuable ones are continuous monitoring of a patients’ health condition and effective and timely interventions aimed at prevention and treatment of complications. They are the medical professionals who provide constant attention to patients in hospitals, closely monitor the indicators of health, collect necessary information on changes in the patients’ health and immediately respond to potential problems by applying appropriate medical procedures and providing necessary assistance to prevent deterioration. Unlike doctors, nurses spend considerably more time by patient’s bed, thus, enabling early diagnosis and treatment of potential complications and enabling for prevention and cure in many health conditions.
Effective communication and coordination
Effective communication between health care providers (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, etc.) has great importance for patients’ health outcome. It prevents misunderstandings, medical errors and enables for timely decision making. The nurse serves as a key communication link between patient and physician, or between different specialists involved in the care process, informing the former on changes in the patient’s health status and condition and on progress of treatment. This process helps in the best implementation of health care protocol, ensuring that patients are properly diagnosed, treated and looked after by relevant medical experts, what indirectly influences on positive health outcomes.
Patient Education and Health Awareness
One of the major contributions to positive health outcomes by nurses comes through patients’ education on self-care, disease management and medication compliance. Many individuals do not understand the disease they suffer from, why they are required to follow specific medical recommendations, what symptoms may arise if not complying with treatment, and how to manage their symptoms or cope with negative signs of the disease. In this field nurses provide practical advice and skills, giving patients the necessary tools to control the disease process and to be an active part in it, thus, contributing to improved general health outcome.
Emotional Support and Mental Well-Being
Patients in health care settings often feel anxious, worried and frightened, what, apart from physical well-being, is significant aspect affecting the overall health outcome. Nurses, with their supportive behavior, empathy and positive attitude create an environment that helps patient to overcome his fear and worry, reducing patients’ stress and increasing their mental satisfaction. By creating this positive and encouraging atmosphere, nurses encourage the patients to more effectively cope with pain and to fully participate in the therapeutic process. By this means nurses contribute to higher patients’ morale that plays a significant role in recovery and treatment outcomes.
Infection Control and Patient Safety
Nurses play an essential role in health care settings and patients’ health outcome by implementing infection control protocols. Medical conditions in hospitals may put patients at higher risk of infection. By correctly practicing all hygiene standards and protocols in handling medications, medical devices and body fluids, nurses effectively prevent the spread of infections in the hospital, protecting patients from harmful pathogens. Furthermore, through proper patient education on hygiene and precautions nurses may reduce risks of hospital acquired infections after being discharged from hospital and at home, improving overall health outcome after leaving a health care facility.
Promoting Preventive Healthcare
Prophylaxis has been proved to be much effective in terms of medical outcome than cures in numerous cases, thus, prevention of the disease has great importance when speaking about the overall health outcomes improvement. Health nurses at their work, for example, educate patients on how to live a healthy lifestyle. This could involve information regarding nutrition, a necessity of physical activity, prevention and early detection of specific diseases, thus, by preventing further occurrence of diseases and improving peoples’ well-being nurses play an important role in enhancing patient health outcome.
Challenges Faced by Nurses
The important role that nurses play has been shown; however, there are certain challenges which they meet that can cause issues in maintaining positive patient outcomes. Excessive workload and staff shortages result in nurses having inadequate time to give individual attention to each patient. This may result in fatigue and burnout of nurses; therefore affecting patients outcome negatively. Limited time for individual attention and care might mean poor patient outcomes due to reduced monitoring and insufficient education of patients.
Conclusion
It is apparent that nurses contribute to the positive outcome of patient care in several ways, making their presence invaluable. Nurses are not only observers, but they are also educators and support figures to the patients they look after and also work with other staff members in providing appropriate care and support, hence, ensuring the positive patient outcome. It is necessary for health care systems to continue supporting nurses and providing for the demands which they have, if we wish to ensure the continued improvement in the patient outcome of the health care systems and, if they continue to be understaffed, then patient outcome are likely to decline in the future, what can influence very negatively.
