Nursing Research and Evidence-Improving   Patient Care

Nursing Research and Evidence-Improving   Patient Care

I have been working in both the long-term care and rehab sections of a nursing home as a nurse for more than five years now. One of the most significant sensitive nursing challenges that I have experienced in my work experience is the issue of interruptions by both family members and friends. Interruptions by family members and friends occur when a nurse is distracted from their typical medication program and routine by the patient’s family members and fellow nurses. Interruptions in the field of nursing occur in various forms, and most often, such interruptions have detrimental effects on the health of the patient (Thomas, Donohue-Porter & Stein Fishbein, 2017). The detrimental impact that the patient might face mostly originate from factors such as medical administration errors and procedural failures that might result from these interruptions. Generally, in nursing, the patient’s outcomes would substantially improve. They so would the quantity and quality of care if interruptions and distractions by both family members and fellow nurses are considerably reduced.

It is without a doubt that the safety of patients is the chief goal in any protocol of treatment. As such, any practice or alternative intervention program that would reduce the issue of interruptions by family members would be much appreciated by both nurses and clinicians. One of the best nursing practices that nurses are adopting at the facility I work in to reduce nurse interruptions includes stating the significance and urgency of the situation that might require the nurse’s time with the patient to be interrupted. Nurses might require weighing the importance of the interruption and choosing or declining to allow the nurse-patient time to be interrupted (Zakria & Mohamed, 2017). When nurses are issuing medication to any patient, only life-threatening situations and any other situations that cannot be delayed, warrant interruption of the nurse-patient time.

References

Thomas, L., Donohue-Porter, P., & Stein, Fishbein, J. (2017). Impact of interruptions, distractions, and cognitive load on procedure failures and medication administration errors. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 32(4), 309-317. https://doi.org/10.1097/ncq.0000000000000256

Zakria, A. M., & Mohamed, S. A. (2017). Safety intervention educational program to reduce medication administration errors and interruptions. IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 06(02), 15-25. https://doi.org/10.9790/1959-0602031525