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- QUESTION
NUR1299 Reflective Essay
- Due date: 14 days following the completion of Clinical Placement.
- Word limit: 1000 words (Excluding Reference List) APA Referencing.
Part of being a Registered Nurse involves the nurse looking at practice critically within the clinical setting. By this we mean to examine practice and to make critical judgements about what is occurring so that there are continuous improvements to the quality of patient care. We have ideals about what should occur, and you may hear your Clinical Nurse Teachers/Facilitators refer to these ideals as ‘best practice’ and or ‘standards’. However, there are many considerations that may affect how these ideals are translated into the quality of care delivered. These may include the socio-political environment, which may affect resourcing, staffing skill mix and training requirements. Staff culture, apathy and/or fatigue may also have a detrimental effect on the quality of care delivered.
This assignment requires you to select an ‘aspect of practice’ observed / experienced in the clinical setting and write a reflective essay on the selected practice aspect / issue you have chosen. The topics will relate to the content discussed in weekly modules, forum discussions and or practical laboratory simulations.
These topics include;
- mobility, and falls
- hygiene
- pressure area and wound care
- nutrition and elimination
- sleep
- psychosocial aspects
- infection control
- manual handling
- medications
The observed ‘aspect of care’ maybe negative and/or positive. As this is a reflective piece based on your perceived and/or personal experiences, it will remain confidential. In preparing your essay you will need to outline the context of the practice aspect and draw conclusions against the available evidence and literature.
The detail is in the marking guide, therefore use the marking guide to direct your assignment.
You may use the headings provided in the marking guide to structure your assignment.
Below are some resources to assist you in your Reflective Essay. The reflection is based on the clinical reflective activity that you are required to complete for each clinical subject within your degree.
Adapted from: Burns, S. and Bulman, C. (2000) (Eds.) Reflective Practice in Nursing: The Growth of the Professional Practitioner (2nd Ed.) Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
Reflective writing encourages you to reveal your personal thoughts about your life experiences in relation to clinical experiences and the content you are learning about in class, thus enhancing the link between theory and practice.
Instructions:
Introduction (50 words)
Provide a brief introduction outlining the scope and direction of the discussion that follows in the body of the reflective essay.
Description of Event
Briefly describe the aspect of practice/topic observed and the clinical situation. Describe what has led you to choose the practice/topic observed. Examine how a practice may have differed from what was expected, based on previous learning. Please remember to use in-text referencing when writing the reflection. A reminder that all persons and facilities must not be identified however, it is appropriate to identify a person as an RN or EN, for example.
Pseudonyms may also be used.
Identify Clinical Factors that influence the delivery of care.
Consider how clinical environment may have influenced the aspect of care. Particular considerations may relate to resources, training, staff and/or patient factors.
What feeling/ emotions/ thoughts did you have or others experience?
Identify and discuss what you were feeling when observing this practice. Describe how others involved in this interaction may have felt and/or thought? This may include other caregivers, patients and/or family members. Has this influenced your perceptions of ‘self’, ‘ageing’, ‘nursing’ and/or ‘delivery of care’?
What values/beliefs underpin thoughts/feelings experienced?
How has your previous life experience influenced how you felt (experiences, culture, religion and/or relationships with others) when observing the topic/aspects of care? Have your personal values influenced your perceptions of the aspect of care/topic delivered? Please explain how.
Analysis: What sense/ meanings can be made of this situation?
Utilizing course resources and additional literature substantiate your arguments and apply theoretical knowledge to your experiences and/or observations.
What action plan/strategies would you use?
What action plan/strategies based on your review of resources would you utilize to improve aspects of care in the clinical setting? How will this experience influence how you deliver an aspect of care? Consider how you could improve delivery of care in relation to the aspect of care observed.
What conclusions can be drawn?
After reflecting on the aspect of care/chosen topic, what you have learnt from the course content? What could have been improved in this situation? How will this experience make you a better nurse?
Reference List (separate page)
Please cut and paste the marking rubric on a new page after your reference list.
| Subject | Essay Writing | Pages | 8 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Healthcare Reflective Essay: Hand Hygiene and Wound Management in Aged Care Facility
In delivering health care, one aspect of practice which should be considered is hygiene. There are set standards which determine the quality of health care when it comes to hygiene and specific recommendations as well aimed at reducing the transmissions of pathogenic organisms to patients and improving health practices. This paper looks at hygiene in healthcare by providing a description of healthcare hygiene, reflects on the clinical factors of hand hygiene in health care, my feelings and thoughts which I experienced, as well as the values and beliefs which underpinned my experience. The paper also analyzes the sense which can be made out of the situation and what strategies and action plans which I would use to improve hygiene in clinical setting.
Description
The aspect of practice which I observed in clinical situation is hygiene. I chose this aspect because hygiene is one of the factors which plays a significant role in ether reducing the risk of spreading infections among patients or, when not observed, can also promote the spread of infections. Based on what I have learned and my past knowledge about hygiene in health care, some practices which I observed from the nurses differed from what I expected, while others just matched my expectations. From my understanding, hand hygiene is one of the good hygiene practices. Clean hands count as an effective way of preventing infections, spreading germs including the ones which are difficult to treat or resistant to the antibiotics (Jethwa, 2015). I expected all the nurses to observe high levels of hand hygiene. However, I noticed that some nurses did not adhere to recommended hand hygiene practices, for instance, they did not wear gloves during the aseptic non touch wound care technique. What matched my expectation, however, was how the nurses were dressing the wounds, for instance, when it came to leaking wounds, they used silver containing hydrofiber-aquacel which balances moisture for the recovery of the wound.
Clinical factors which Influence the Delivery of Dare
From my observation, I feel that the clinical environment contributed significantly on influencing the standards of hygiene practiced by the nurses. There was a shortage of antiseptics, which is one of the materials used in promoting hand hygiene. I think that some of the resources should be a priority in healthcare especially when it comes to matters to do with hygiene.
Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts which I experienced
When observing these practices, at some point, I was worried for the patients, especially when the nurse did not consider hand hygiene. My thoughts were on how this aspect could be changed and improved for better delivery in health care. I felt that I could have done something like communicating with the nurse about it which I, however, failed to do.
Values/ Beliefs
I believe that as a nurse, one of the good practices which should be given priority is high standards of hygiene. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other institutions have provided guidelines, especially to the healthcare workers, health authorities as well as hospital administrators with a thorough review of the hand hygiene aspect (Hua, 2015). I believe that health institutions should set polices in relation to these guidelines and ensure that they are adhered to. As a nurse, I value hygiene and the health and safety of patients.
Analysis
Prevention of infection is very important and from this situation, I believe that there is much which can be done in regard to healthcare hygiene. Many healthcare workers describe hand hygiene as one single and most important tool used in the prevention of germs and infections among patients (Hayden, 2016). There are few definitive data, according to WHO, on healthcare activities which can transmit germs to the hands of healthcare works. However, there has been a lot of literature which has identified numerous possibilities of germ transmission to the hands. In most cases, germs and bacterial are found in the hands of health care workers after performing activities such as nursing wounds, respiratory track care among other related activities. However, bacteria can also be found after clean contact activities such as taking pulse of the patient or even temperature or blood pressure. Direct patient contact has been confirmed as one of the ways in which health care workers’ hands can be contaminated; however, there are also other ways which the hands of healthcare workers can be contaminated among them being touching contaminated surfaces, and touching a contaminated chart at the nurse station (Boyce, 2002).
Action Plan/Strategies
It is important to consider hand hygiene not only before getting in contact with a patient, but also after getting in contact with the patient. I think that in a clinical setting, it is also important to keep the healthcare environment clean because this can also help in reducing the germs and bacteria in the surfaces. Despite the fact that many health care facilities such as hospitals have hygiene policies which are used in guiding nurses and other healthcare employees, I believe that much more can be done such as monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of the policies set. When it comes to preventing infections in healthcare institutions, one of the important things which needs to be understood is that hygiene works for different types of organisms and this means that there has to be very high levels of hygiene compliance for this to be effective.
Conclusions
I believe that from the experience which I have gained in both classwork and in my practice, I can be a better nurse. One of the things which I have learned is that for a good nurse, hygiene cannot be neglected or assumed. From this, I believe that for me to be a better nurse, I have to practice very high standards of hygiene and strive for the best in other healthcare practices as well. I have also learned that quality of services provided is key and a good nurse has to deliver the best in their power when it comes to the quality of services provided. I have also learned that meeting the required standards is also important and adhering the policies set within the organization. I believe that the overall experience has made me a better nurse.
References
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Boyce, J. M. Guideline for Hand Hygiene in health-care settings MMWR, 2002. Hayden, H. S. (2016). G552 (P) Hand hygiene: Cleaning up bad practice. Hua, S. U., & Ali, K. Q. (2015). Hand Hygiene Practices of Nursing Students. International Journal of Nursing Education, 8(2), 2212. Jethwa, D. K., Chaudhri, U., & Chauhan, D. (2015). Prevalence of Giardia infection in paediatric age group. Int J Curr Microbiol App Sci, 4(8), 907-911.
Appendix
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