Advocacy Through Legislation in NJ Health, Medicine Coursework

Advocacy Through Legislation
Problem

The current healthcare environment presents a complex scenario where the health facilities experience increases in the desire for integrative nursing care. The nurses' initiative needs a smooth collaboration to assure there is safe and effective patient care. One condition for the poor patient outcome is the lack of communication and poor handoff among the caregivers. The nurses are obliged to carry out effective handoff when managing the patients. The effectiveness of the process promotes the community of care, as suggested by Shapiro (2017). The element of poor communication and ineffective transition hinders the provision of quality care services. The changeover among nurses is a more personal communication issue. The nurses are expected to consider different aspects, including the treatment plans, patient records, conditions of the patient, and effective approaches to the patient's management and treatment. Therefore, conversions and reporting among the nurses need to have a deep comprehension of intentional and emotional information to enhance the successful handoffs. The ineffective communication during transitions results in adverse consequences to the patients. They suffer complications arising from poor management, overdose, and late treatment from the staff. Excellent communication during the handoff reduces the chances for errors in the treatment, time spent in the hospital, and the increase in successful treatment and job satisfaction for the nurses. In this view, the healthcare system appreciates that the goals and objectives for safe patient care are through effective communication in the transition.

Idea for Addressing Solution

The relationship between the patients and nurses is influenced mostly by the nurse's effective transmissions and effective communication approaches. The aspect of communication makes the nursing fraternity of a good patient outcome. The nurses need to have the policy to reform nursing practices, primarily through improved communication and effective transitions within the care setting. Nurses should find it essential to advocate for these reforms in their work by applying legislative frameworks. Cornell (2015) indicates a need for legislative action to drive effective communication and handoff in the healthcare setting among the entire care professionals. One of the measures nurses can adopt in their communication process is the Situation, Background, Argument, and Recommendation (SBAR) tool to guarantee them a successful transition. The tool ensures the nurses have a common communication medium. The healthcare practitioners, including the nurses, need to support the SBAR tool to conduct successful handoff. The tool ensures all the necessary information is passed to the relevant parties during shifts. It facilitates consistency and clarity in using the best legal approach for advocacy as it is the most respected. It is bound to ensure the policy is used by the care systems rather than one facility, and as a result, it improves the care delivery across the state.

Research the Issue

Evidence 1

In the nursing practice, the SBAR communication tool allows the patient information to be transmitted to the relevant recipient accurately and safely. Shahid and Thomas (2018) posit that the tool allows healthcare providers to have a common language, shared decisions, and conflict resolution tactics. Furthermore, the structured SBAR protocol to showcase the patient's scenario during the handoff reduces the review during the nursing shifts. The researchers also note that the efforts to test the SBAR tool's impacts on the patient outcome during handoff indicate improvements in patient care and limited re-admission rates. The study further notes that the tool facilitates awareness of the issues and focuses on health-based issues.

Evidence 2

There are excellent reforms in the healthcare establishments evidence in the states already using the SBAR communication element. The move helps the legislation reduce the medical practice errors that trigger more cases of re-admission. The legislation aiming to support effective communication assures the nursing team that they will eliminate the nurses' errors associated with the handoff. Cornel et al. (2015) argue that nurses are always less aware of the importance of using the SBAR tool to enhance excellent communication and handoff. The creation of such awareness provides the opportunity to reduce errors in medical practice. The argument is further supported by Muller et al. (2018), who suggests th...