Elements of Professional Nursing at HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center

Elements of Professional Nursing at HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center

 

Caring

  • Caring involves the protection, enhancement, and preservation of human dignity.
  • Caring is being the patient/family advocate and promoting patient/family satisfaction with care.
  • Caring requires from me a personal, professional, social, moral, ethical, and spiritual engagement.
  • Caring is a knowledgeable, deliberative intervention, not an emotional response.
  • Nurses need to learn, understand, acknowledge, and integrate in practice the values, beliefs, and habits of diverse cultural and sub-cultural orientations.
  • Nurses need to care for and support one another as they care for their patients.
  • There is a place for humor in health care and healing.

Accountability

  • Nurses are accountable to the patient/family, the health care team, the organization, and myself.
  • Accountability includes developing and maintaining current nursing knowledge and skills through formal and continuing education and, where appropriate, seeking certification in my area of practice.
  • Accountability embraces practice based upon the profession’s code of ethics, standards of practice and legal regulations.
  • Competency is inherent in the practice of nursing and includes awareness of my own limitations.
  • Nursing is accountable for evidence base and supports positive clinical outcomes.

Communication

  • Creating an environment that supports effective, respectful, and honest communication.
  • Applying therapeutic communication relevant to the beliefs and value system of those receiving care.
  • The effectiveness of the nurse and patient/family relationship is dependent upon the ability to collaborate with all members of the health-care team.
  • Communication includes supporting relationships with colleagues through respectful, clear, accurate, and timely written and verbal communication.

Learning/Teaching

  • Critical thinking skills must be applied to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate care specific to the individuality of those receiving care.
  • The learning-teaching process is an ongoing, dynamic, interpersonal process whereby both the learner and teacher grow.
  • The nurse facilitates health promotion, maintenance, and optimal health functioning.

Management/Leadership

  • The patient/family is at the center of all decision making.
  • Management and leadership skills are essential elements of nursing practice through which nurses’ offer and deliver high quality health care to individuals, families, groups, and communities.
  • Leadership includes being accountable for maximizing resources in the delivery of patient care.
  • Leadership skills involve self-reflection, understanding human processes, and envisioning possibilities for enriching people’s lives.
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