Nurse Situations Facing Difficult Decisions Essays Examples

One is currently employed in the Kindred Hospital. Just like in other health care organizations, there are policies and procedures being followed regarding decision-making processes. Nurses, for instance, have been provided opportunities to make decisions within their respective performance of duties and responsibilities focusing on patient care. An area that could be addressed in one’s place of employment to prevent nurses from being in positions to make difficult decisions is in the policymaking department: human resources management, in close coordination with the nursing department.
One of the controversial concerns where nurses could face the need to make difficult decisions is where novice nurses make clinical decision-making . As emphasized, there is an estimated number of as much as seventy five percent of novice nurses who reportedly committed diverse medication errors which allegedly includes intravenous administrations (Smith & Crawford, 2003; cited in Saintsing, Gibson and Pennington, 2011, p. 356). Various studies revealed that novice nurses’ facing increased work load, than what has been traditionally exposed to during clinical trainings, contribute to medication errors in clinical decision making processes. Other factors contributory to errors include overtime work, patient load, and the need to comply with expected responsibilities within strictly defined time frames . The fact was corroborated by Ebright, Urden, Patterson, & Chalko (2004) who asserted that “time pressure related to completing work and patient load is a factor in 80% of the errors reported” (cited in Saintsing, Gibson, & Pennington, 2011, p. 357).
As such, best practices include a number of proposed actions that would improve the clinical decision making processes of novice nurses to prevent medication errors. This include: focused and specialized training, use of checklists, and improved doctor-nurses communication. Moreover, another best practice recommendation was to integrate critical thinking and decision-making as part of the nursing curriculum to assist in the transition from academic pursuit to the work environment . These strategies would be disseminated by the human resources department to ensure that nurses are provided with ample resources, guidelines, and training in making responsible decisions, as needed.

References

Ebright, P., Urden, L., Patterson, E., & Chalko, B. (2004). Themes surrounding novice nurse near miss and adverse event situations. Journal of Nursing Administration, 34, 531-538.
Saintsing, D., Gibson, L., & Pennington, A. (2011). The novice nurse and clinical decision-making: how to avoid errors. Journal of Nursing Management, 19, 354-359.
Smith, J., & Crawford, L. (2003). Medication errors and difficultyin first patient assignments of newly licensed nurses. JONAS Healthcare Law, Ethics and Regulation, 5, 65-67.