Accountability In Nursing

When one considers the traits needed to be a good nurse, and what a core value of nursing would be, a multitude of characteristics are brought forth. Common ideas brought forth are empathy, integrity, respect and communication. However, an often overlooked but nonetheless quintessential attribute of the nursing practice is accountability. In nursing, where the lives of patient’s and their loved ones, and the reputation of one’s own nursing practice are in one’s hands, it is essential to take responsibility for what you do or do not say or do. Being accountable for one’s actions or words can often mean either recovery or deterioration, health or illness, life or death. This concept of nursing is explored brought forth often in Tilda Shalof’s novel A Nurse’s Story: Life, Death and In-Between in An Intensive Care Unit, where she discusses difficult situations wherein she had to hold herself accountable for her actions. Therefore, due to the sensitive and intense nature

According to Rachel (2012) “accountability is at the heart of nursing, weaving its way through nursing practice in all settings and at all levels” (para. 1). Accountability builds the individual and organizational credibility by clearly setting the expectations, goals, and commitments. As a nurse, I am committed to growing and advance in my knowledge and skills, adhere to the nursing standards and ethics, involve in professional associations, and attain any certifications needed for my practice. In personal growth and development area, I would rate myself in between the competent and expert level, since I am on track in implementing my action plans to advance my education, keep up with continued education credits required, have a plan for my

Even though they go through extensive training to administer medications, everyone can make mistakes. These mistakes do not always harm the patient but some mistakes can cause severe consequences. The goal is to improve methods of medication administration to make it safer for the patients. However, not all improvements are good improvements. With the implementation of electronic charting and prescribing, there has not been much of a noticeable change in the amount of medication errors but there also has not been a significant increase in errors (Jheeta & Frankline, 2017, p. 6). Electronic charting and prescribing is a step in the right direction but improvements need to be made. There are many causes that contribute to medication errors and not all of them are the nurse's fault but with teamwork of everyone in the healthcare field we may be able to make improvements in the future to reduce risk and harm to the

Like the patients have the rights to refuse the treatments, we as nurses have the rights to refuse any assignment that we think is not balance, bias or that could make our practice unsafe. “The American Nurses Association (ANA) upholds that registered nurses – based on their professional and ethical responsibilities – have the professional right to accept, reject or object in writing to any patient assignment that puts patients or themselves at serious risk for harm” (American Nurses Association, 2015, 1). The nurses' refusal should not be based, however, on personal preferences. Any nurse who acts in such matter can be held accountable in the decisions of refusal an assignment personal preferences patient abandonment. Nevertheless, the refusal can be based solely on moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.

Delegation is considered to be among the most involved nursing skills which require a nurse to apply knowledgeable clinical judgment and accountability during patient care. RNs have an obligation to finding what is needed for patients and families and then using the appropriate delegation to staff to help carry out the plan. This helps maximize on achieving the most desired outcomes and also maximize the use of available resources. The only way to help RNs maximize the available resources is through improving their delegation skills. If a nurse is to be delegated a task, it should be within their scope of nursing and also be tasks they are qualified to perform. If a nurse is not qualified then the work should be

Teamwork, communication, and delegation in nursing are variables dependent on one another for success. This post is the first in a series on nursing delegation in which we will discuss the team nursing model, the RN 's role in task delegation, and how effective communication fosters teamwork which leads to better outcomes for patients and employees.

A literature search was carried out to find a definition of accountability using the BNI and CINHAL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) ‘accountability’ was inputted into the databases. 18,114 results from search engine BNI and 16,725 results were produced from CINHAL respectfully. Results were reduced as filters were applied (see appendices 2). Filters were applied, before titles, abstracts and whole articles were reviewed, this was the case for Mullen (2014) on CINHAL. Mullen (2014) was then analyzed regarding its content. 83 words

Thank you for sharing your ideas on this week’s topic. Safety is one the core competencies that every future health care worker should have, more importantly nurses since we are the last checkpoint for the patient. You are right about medication errors when you stated “mediation error puts patients at risk of serious safety issues and even death.” This is show the importance of safe practice. Great post!

The article that I chose for this week relates to effective delegation in nursing practice. Delegation is an extremely important ingredient in the delivery of care provided by health care professionals. However, with delegation comes great responsibility. Licensed Nurses must always know the laws enforced by their state boards as to what levels of care can be delegated to another provider and who has the authority to perform the delegated tasks. Every state has different laws as to what services can be delegated and by whom. Nurses are required to delegate care only if the assistant is capable of the task and the Registered Nurse (RN) must follow up on the care provided as well as be available to assist or intervene if necessary. Effective

With each passing year, the mantle of accountability grows heavier on the shoulders of registered nurses worldwide. In a profession whose roots date back to Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, no time in nursing’s history has the word accountability meant so much. As the profession assumes more and more power, the burden of liability becomes heavier. However, few individuals know the true meaning of accountability. For many, accountability and responsibility have the same meaning and carry the same weight. Yet, this is far from true. Accountability binds all levels of healthcare together. Accountability, as opposed to responsibility, separates an average nurse from that of an exceptional nurse because it makes nurses answerable for their

Administering medication is a fundamental role in a nurse’s daily routine in the ward. This process happens at least twice daily and on average takes up to forty percentage of nurse’s time. It is also this skill that is higher risk, it is a step that is very susceptible to errors that can lead to consequences in patient safety. Medication governance has been put in place to prevent errors and promote patient safety. However, medication errors are still recurrent and persistent. This forty percentage of time is spent by nurses giving their time, concentration, and excellent communication for their patient. Each medication must be checked and administered accurately yet promptly. It is very hard for a nurse in stress-fuelled wards to spend just one hour on this job as they can be constantly interrupted throughout the process.

Professional and ethical accountability is an essential factor in the nursing profession and patient safety. As proposed by the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics requires that individual nurses take responsibility to one action to others (patients and family members, our profession, coworkers, workplace, and to oneself (Batti, & Steelman, 2014). Therefore, According to McCormick, (201) accountability is the basis in building trust, reducing fear, and enhancing morale and performant. Accountability depends on both effective communication skills and clinical expertise. It helps nurses to recognize breach in care that can adversely affect patient health outcome and be able to correct them on time. Therefore, the APRN should hold

Exploration of nurses’ knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers toward medication error reporting in tertiary health care facility: qualitative study

Healthcare ethics has been of higher importance as long as healthcare practice has existed. It is first necessary to explain that healthcare ethics is regarded as moral principles that are commonly considered as allowable and reasonable by the society. However, in spite of a universally stable set of ethical standards that direct the healthcare industry, there are many cases of these values on the verge of being violated. For instance, it is extremely possible that a medical worker will face an extraordinary situation that requires high performance of reaction, solicitude, attention and custody.

Katina, employee accountability is indeed important for organizational performance. Accountability have different meanings within professions and organizations. Accountability in nursing refers to the need for nurses to conduct themselves according to legal and ethical standards (Griffith, 2015). Accountable nurses must be able to defend their actions, both legally and professionally. The standards that are set by state nursing boards provide an additional level of accountability to nurses. I do not know the specifics of correction action processes for your organization, but the regulatory and procedural hurdles for beginning corrective action on low-performing employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs are very high. One key that I have