Nursing clinical placement report

Nursing

Clinical Placement Report - Charters Towers Hospital in Queensland, Australia

Describe the complex nursing interventions delivered by the service

In the course of a given day nurses at Charters Towers Hospital will engage in multiple interventions depending on the health status of the patients being treated. Complex nursing interventions used by the service provided at Charters Towers Hospital include interventions related to complex nursing procedures such as: nasogastric/gastrostomy tubes for delivering patient nutrition; catheterizations for ensuring waste elimination; wound care which may include changing sterile dressings;

oral suctioning; stoma care; tracheostomy care to help prevent infection; oxygen therapy to promote proper lung and respiratory functioning; suture line care; IV therapy to delivery medications; dialysis; and barrier/reverse barrier nursing.

Classic nursing interventions delivered by this service also include pain management to reduce pain in patients, which may include non-pharmacological interventions such as icing or applying heat to the affected area (Campbell & Sigsby, 1995). Hot and cold application are commonly used to decrease pain, inflammation and other symptoms in patients (Campbell & Sigsby, 1995). Other interventions include infection protection and control, and management and monitoring of specific conditions.

Describe how the service promotes client health and positive lifestyle choices?

It is vital given the modern state of health are throughout the world and the technological advances afforded by telemedicine and other technology that nursing "clarify its contribution to health care" and that nursing staff ensure clients health and well being is promoted (Campbell & Sigsby, 1995: 229).

The service promotes clients well being by adopting the concept of the community as a client (Caretto & McCormick, 1991). This means that nurses seek to focus on not only individual and family care but also focus on health care at the community level and providing hands on experience to all clients in the health care setting. This means the service works toward providing hands on nursing interventions at the collective level, identifying the needs, health patterns and risk factors for illnesses within a given community and making appropriate diagnosis, planning and implementing treatments based on the needs of a group or subgroups as well as the needs of individuals (Caretto & McCormick, 1991).

Optimal service delivery and positive lifestyle choices are only made when clients (either individuals, families or community members) are well educated and informed as well (Lumby & Picone, 2000).Thus the service also offers patients ample educational opportunities to learn about treatment choices, medications and lifestyle choices that can promote optimal health and wellness.

Describe how the service ensures the safe administration of medications to clients

Medication errors can prove deadly to clients (Meadows, 2003). The service currently adopts multiple practices to ensure that errors resulting from medications are minimized. Examples include use of technology to minimize errors, improving processes and procedures and building a culture within the organization that promotes safety and safe practices (Meadows, 2003).

Studies suggest that more computerized order entry of medications helps reduce errors by limiting interpretation errors due to handwriting (Meadows, 2003). Thus more order entry is involving computers to protect patients. A culture that supports safety and safe practices has also been adopted to provide nursing staff and patients information about drug therapy and medication to ensure that everyone is aware of the need for safe practices when utilizing and dispensing medications.

Describe the strategies used to ensure nursing practice is performed within legal requirements and ethical frameworks

Nurses now "live and work in a world where there is no single reality but many coexisting realities among which they must choose" (Johnston, 1999:1). Given that through more and more nurses are forced to make legal and ethical decisions and take steps that will determine the best processes to adopt to ensure that moral and legal processes are adopted and followed.