Com701 Theory And Practice In Assessment Answers

Answer:

Introduction:

Reflective practice is one of the most effective process that helps to evaluate the performance of a nurse and identify the mistakes in the service in order to improve the clinical skills and avoid such mistakes in future (Dubé & Ducharme, 2015). In this regards I will reflect regarding one of the important skills in clinical practice that could benefit both the client and the general practice. The chosen skill for the assignment is ability to prepare care plan for chronic illness management. The following paper will provide a brief description of the skill, its importance, evaluation of my skill, area of improvement and benefits to the client and general practice.

Identification of skill and its importance:

Improving care for the patient with chronic illness is one of the greatest challenges for the health care system. It has been found that 87% of the total population of the world have at least one chronic illness and death rate due to chronic illness is also high (von Haehling Anker & Anker, 2016). Hence, preparing care plan for chronic illness management is important in order to improve the care of patients and nurses should have the skill to prepare an effective care plan for such patients. The ability of planning and coordinating with other health professionals and monitoring the patient with care plan is also related with the skill of preparing care plan for the chronic illness management. Such ability would help a nurse to provide quality care service to the patient with chronic illness and achieve successful outcomes (Coulter et al., 2015).

Evaluation of the skill:

In order to meet the requirements of the patient with chronic illness, I perform proper risk assessment to identify the central problem of the patient. I prepare adequate care plan based on the priority of need. In order to ensure the effectiveness of my care plan, I always discuss my planning with other health professionals such as senior nurses and doctors. I use to monitor the patient and follow up the care plan in order to identify improvement or deterioration in the health status so that I could improve the care plan. I take feedback from the patients and the doctor regarding the care plan. Such process help me to ensure that I am performing the skill in an effective manner. For example, I have prepared care plan for a diabetes patient that includes proper diet, medication, physical activities and education regarding self-management of diabetes (American Diabetes Association, 2015). I have monitored the patient’s blood glucose level and found that within few months there was a significant reduction in the blood glucose level. The patient has mentioned that my care plan has helped her to manage diabetes in an effective manner. Such experience has helped me to gain confidence that I could perform my skill effectively.

Improvement in the skill:

During performing the skill I have identified that I need to communicate in a better manner to improve my skill of preparing care plan and implement the plan. Due to communication problem I face difficulties in risk assessment of chronic illness which is important for preparing care plan. For example, in a case of COPD, the patient was uncomfortable to share his problems due to poor communication, thus, I have faced problem in understanding the requirements of the patient that has led to the difficulties in preparing care plan. Thus, I feel that I need to improve my communication (Arnold et al., 2015). It would help me to interact with the patients easily and they could share their problem without hesitation that could help me to include proper activities in my care plan. Effective communication would help me to collaborate with other health professional. Patients could share their feedback without any biasness and I could evaluate my performance in an effective manner (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).

Benefits to client and general practice:

Utilizing the skill of preparing effective care plan for chronic illness management would benefit both the patient and the general practice. Risk assessment is an important part of preparing care plan. It helps to identify the risk factors contributing to the illness, thus, helps to introduce effective interventions in the care plan to address the risk factors in an effective manner. Proper care plan focus to resolve the central problems, thus helps the patients to recover faster (Coulter et al., 2015). Care plan also include educating the patients regarding their illness so that they could manage their illness after getting discharge from the hospital. Beside such benefits to the patient, the skill of preparing care plan facilitate the general practice as well. For example, it helps to communicate the nursing staffs during shift change and reduce miscommunication, thus, helps to ensure patient safety and achieve expected outcomes (Wiley et al., 2015).

Conclusion:

From the above discussion it can be said that, preparing care plan for chronic illness management is an important skill that a nurse should have. It helps to provide effective interventions for addressing the risk factors thus contributes to faster recovery. In this regards, collaboration with health professionals and routine follow up of care plan is important to introduce change in the plan in order to improve it. It would help to reduce miscommunication during changing shift, thus ensure patient safety. However, I need to improve my communication. It would help to improve my skill and achieve expected outcomes.

References:

American Diabetes Association. (2015). Standards of medical care in diabetes—2015 abridged for primary care providers. Clinical diabetes: a publication of the American Diabetes Association, 33(2), 97.

Arnold, R. M., Back, A. L., Barnato, A. E., Prendergast, T. J., Emlet, L. L., Karpov, I., ... & Nelson, J. E. (2015). The critical care communication project: improving fellows' communication skills. Journal of critical care, 30(2), 250-254.

Coulter, A., Entwistle, V. A., Eccles, A., Ryan, S., Shepperd, S., & Perera, R. (2015). Personalised care planning for adults with chronic or long-term health conditions. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Dubé, V., & Ducharme, F. (2015). Nursing reflective practice: An empirical literature review. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 5(7), 91.

Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. V. (2014). Communication in nursing practice. Materia socio-medica, 26(1), 65.

von Haehling, S., Anker, M. S., & Anker, S. D. (2016). Prevalence and clinical impact of cachexia in chronic illness in Europe, USA, and Japan: facts and numbers update 2016. Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle, 7(5), 507-509.

Wiley, J. A., Rittenhouse, D. R., Shortell, S. M., Casalino, L. P., Ramsay, P. P., Bibi, S., ... & Alexander, J. A. (2015). Managing chronic illness: physician practices increased the use of care management and medical home processes. Health Affairs, 34(1), 78-86.