Portfolio
Synthesize Knowledge from the Liberal Arts and Sciences and Nursing Science in Understanding Global Perspectives, Stimulating Critical Thinking, and Using Current Technologies
In the first class, we were introduced to management of information in healthcare. We learnt on the ways of acquiring medical information, analyzing it and protecting it so as to provide high quality patient care. This class helped to understand how to connect science, business, and information technology into healthcare to ensure that operations run smoothly (Appendix 1). Through use of current information technology applications, it is easy to carry out daily operations such as management of electronic health records and health information. I learnt that health information management personnel should make sure that patient’s health records and information are protected, accurate, and complete to avoid unnecessary loss, damage or delays.
Carrying out a group project helped to stimulate critical thinking and understanding of different perspectives on health across the world. Group members helped to identify solutions to a pregnant young girl who was to approach her parents with the shocking information. This exercise helped to improve our skills in critical thinking.
Moreover, working as a group allowed me to be open minded listen to different views from group members and analyze the contributions given. It also helped me to think hard so as to give meaningful contributions to the group. Since people come from different backgrounds, they gave different opinions and suggestions enabling members to appreciate our differences.
Make Sound Decisions in the Use of Patient Information and Healthcare Technology to Design, Coordinate, Manage, and Evaluate Nursing
Care for Individuals, Families, and Populations
There are several classes and assignments that improved my understanding of how I should conduct myself as a medical practitioner, ways of managing information and solving problems. For instance, in the second class, we learnt about the qualifications of a professional nurse. Professional nurses should assess the symptoms and medical history of patients, plan individualized patient care, and administer medications and treatments to them (Appendix 2). In case of any challenges, I learnt that it is advisable to consult with other healthcare professionals.
The assignment on caring for culturally diverse patients helped me to how to take care of health needs of different populations, families, and individuals. Taking care of such patients involves good management skills, coordination, evaluation, and designing the work to be done (Appendix 2). The professional nursing class introduced us to critical thinking thus enabling us to understand how we can relate to patients from different backgrounds and satisfy their health desires. The group work project also helped members to understand how nurses should relate with third parties and give individualized care to patients.
Demonstrate Clinical Excellence to Provide Caring, Compassionate, and Culturally Appropriate Patient-Centered Care to People in a Variety of
Settings
Carrying out research on the assignment where we were supposed to identify ways of caring for culturally different clients helped me to understand how to take care of patients. Getting information from five peer reviewed sources helped to determine how mid wives should take care of women from different backgrounds. Information from the sources showed the challenges that healthcare practitioners face when interacting with patients from different cultural backgrounds (Appendix 3). Some of the main challenges include language barrier and intervention of relatives. Learning about the challenges helped me to understand what things I should expected in such cases and ways of solving the problem.
After identifying the main issues, I was supposed to give recommendations as well as implications of the actions. I identified ways of giving quality healthcare services to patients from different backgrounds (Appendix 3). The patient safety critique assignment helped me to understand some of the factors contributing to provision of low quality healthcare services. I also understood the importance of being compassionate and giving patient-centered care in different environmental settings.
Communicate, Collaborate, and Negotiate Effectively to Improve Patient Healthcare Outcomes
The most helpful tasks in improving my communication, and collaboration skills involved working on the group project. At first, I used to be the quiet individual in the group who never made efforts to contribute ideas. With time, other group members realized that I was not being fruitful in the group. As a result, they informed me on the issue and encourage me to air my opinions without worrying a lot about being judged. It took some time before I got used but finally I gathered courage and realized that people appreciated my efforts. Working as a team reduced the workload, making it easy to tackle the most challenging tasks.
Most activities such as giving options to the patient took a short time because people came up with different ideas. In other cases, we could disagree on some issues which required negotiations to ensure that only the most appropriate ideas were taken into consideration (Appendix 4). Through the nursing leadership and healthcare policy class, I learnt about how senior and junior staff should relate and how they should work together as a team to deliver quality services and to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Interactions with different people involve negotiations and collaborations as learnt from the class.
Exhibit Professional Values and Behaviors as Affirmed By a Code of Ethics, Professional Standards, and Legal Statutes
I learnt about some of the things expected from me as a healthcare professional in terms of behaviors and professional value in some of the classes. Some of the classes that played a major role in changing my approach to nursing include; nursing leadership and healthcare policy, community focused professional nursing, holistic nursing, and the current class which is application of nursing concepts (Appendix 5). Through these classes, I have learnt how to adjust my character, how to interact with others, and how nurses should work.
Through nursing leadership I learnt that being a leader involves sharing responsibilities with other people to form strong relationships and networks. Doing so contributes to provision of high quality services and improves coordination of activities. I also understood that it is important to collaborate with other healthcare professionals to minimize harm and to adjust priorities. Such practices help to provide compassionate, safe, ethical, and competent nursing care.
Administrators and clinical leaders are responsible of maintaining and creating an environment that benefits the public through provision of high quality health services (Appendix 5). I also learnt that leadership entails supporting, coaching, attracting, mentoring, and rewarding others. Through the holistic nursing class, I also learnt about ways of becoming a better nurse through aiming at overall healing of a patient. This means that I will focus on ensuring that I provide the best services to a patient to ensure that they fully benefit and feel satisfied about their health.
The class about community focused professional nursing emphasized on the need to provide nursing care to the community. This practice may involve spending more time with community members to understand their problems. This type of nursing also involves paying attention not only to individuals but also the entire population. Such activities help to improve professional standards
Promote Healthy Lifestyles through Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Disease Prevention Education for Individuals and Populations
The assignment on food nutrition helped me learn some of the best ways of promoting a healthy lifestyle. I did an obesity case study where I learnt some of the vital things about its causes and conditions. I also learnt about body mass index and risk factors that influence obesity development (Appendix 6). Obesity is a major problem in developed countries due to poor lifestyles which involves lack of exercise and eating unhealthy food. It is important that we carried out a research about the topic because it helped raise awareness on a problem affecting most people in the world today. It is also appropriate to say that obesity is a major factor to development of other health complications such as heart attack.
The patient safety critique assignment also helps to reduce risks. In other cases, nurses may play a major role in jeopardizing the health of patients through giving inadequate dosage which may result to health complications (Appendix 6). If patients do not get proper medication in a timely manner, they may also suffer from avoidable illnesses. Community focused professional nursing helps to promote healthy lifestyles to the general population.
Incorporate Evidence-Based Knowledge and Theory into Nursing Practice
The evidence-based nursing practice class opened my mind and gave me adequate knowledge on nursing practice. I learnt that evidence-based nursing is a great approach to providing nursing care and making quality decisions that are based on clinical expertise and carrying out adequate research on a topic (Appendix 7). Updated methods should be used to provide healthcare to healthcare services. Through the class, I learnt that the goal of evidence-based nursing is to improve the safety and health of patients while at the same time ensuring that they spend the least of healthcare. Carrying out such practices is founded on appraisal, applicable research, interpretation, and collection.
Other class activities that helped to improve my understanding on evidence-based nursing include; cultivating the spirit of inquiry, carrying out a case study assignment and site visit and understanding legal and ethical issues. The case study on obesity played a major role in helping me to incorporate the skills and knowledge learnt into nursing practice (Appendix 7). The assignment on high blood pressure in African Americans helped me to organize work, plan, and put the knowledge gained into practice. Carrying out a site visit to a holistic health center located in Florida beach enabled me to understand some of the factors in a healthcare environment such as the benefits patients can enjoy as well as the risks they may face in such an environment.
Demonstrate Leadership and Collaboration within Interdisciplinary Healthcare Partners and Professional, Political, and/or Regulatory
Organizations to Support Change in Health Care
The nursing leadership and healthcare policy class helped me to understand the roles of nurses as agents of change and as leaders. I learnt that nursing involves implementing goal-driven interventions aimed at improving the comfort and health status of a patient. Nurses are mainly recognized as alliance builders (Appendix 8). Professional nurses should motivate and coordinate care teams, and support the wellbeing of patients. I also learnt the importance of communication skills and ability to influence other healthcare professionals towards a common target or objectives. Understanding such concepts helps shows that nurses should take initiative to provide quality health care systems and improve the safety of patients.
The assignment on taking care of patients from different cultural backgrounds also played a major role in helping me to understand how to support changes in healthcare and to demonstrate good leadership qualities and to ensure that healthcare professionals form good relationships through effective communication and sharing duties. Carrying out group assignments helped to sharpen leadership and collaborative skills. Members in my group were assigned different duties where we had to be fully responsible to ensure that things were done in an appropriate way within a specified period (Appendix 8). In a group, members are supposed to understand that success of activities carried out is as a result of group work. Such lesson helped me to understand why it is important to collaborate with other stakeholders as well as determining the best ways of working with other people towards a common objective.
Allocate and Manage Resources to Ensure Patient Safety and High-Quality Health Care
The EMR project was helpful in understanding how to allocate and manage various resources to make sure that patients receive quality healthcare. Different functions of individuals are outlined. For instance, there was a discussion on the responsibilities and functions of customer panel, operations panel, resource panel, finance panel, risk panel, and competition panel (Appendix 9). The purpose panel demonstrates the ambition and purpose of healthcare practitioners. In this case, medical practitioners should make efforts to understand the history of patients, to improve their feedback, and to ensure that they give patients value for their money.
On the other hand, the resource panel identifies the resources needed to ensure that patients receive high quality services. For example, the resources that are essential for the provision of quality health services are high quality EMR systems, adequate and suitable machinery and medical premises and availability of highly qualified professionals (Appendix 9). Finances should also be managed properly to ensure that delays are not caused by unavailability of different essential resources that need to either be hired or purchased. The swim-lane flowchart in the project also shows how management of resources should be done to ensure that everything goes accordingly. For example, identification of the needs of patients, provision of quality services, and things that can be done to ensure that customers are satisfied have been explained in the project.
Engage In Life-Long Learning and Scholarly Inquiry to Continue Professional Career Development
The unit on advanced acute care concepts helped me to prepare using nursing concepts to provide complex patient care. The unit also integrated aspects of leadership and public health to demonstrate the importance providing quality services. Giving a critique on the safety of patients helped to understand some of the key issue facing both patients and nurses. Through the assignment, I was able to learn some of the ways of handling challenges faced (Appendix 10). For instance, I learnt about the effects of staff inexperience on patients, poor documentation, inadequate drug reference, insufficient drug information, and precautions that need to be taken to avoid failure. Understanding such factors and qualities help to improve one’s approach towards nursing which later leads to competency in future operations. Learning such skills and getting knowledge motivates me to continue building and developing my career to provide high quality healthcare services.
