Primary Care Nursing Model

Top Nursing Models to Consider
Review and summarize two scholarly resources (not including your text) related to the nursing care model you observed in the practice setting.
The first article reviewed for this assignment pertaining to the primary nursing care model is entitled “Implementation of a primary nursing model to optimize patient care and safety in an outpatient chemotherapy unit”. The authors discuss the incorporation of a primary nursing care model for use with cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment. It involves some of the fundamental aspects of this particular care model. One of the more eminent of these is the communication involved between registered nurses and other healthcare professionals to deploy such a model. The article discussed registered nurses working in conjunction with other personnel to monitor the treatment of patients experiencing radiation. Nurses worked with these professionals on an individual patient basis, gradually fostering “disease specific expertise” (Olstrom and Albenese, 2006 p. 447) as a result.
The second article reviewed for the primary nursing care model is entitled “A patient resource program: strengthening primary nursing”. It details the efforts of a patient resource program to find ways to counteract three detriments to primary nursing: “fragmentation of care, duplication, and blurred accountability” (Hambleton, 1998, p. 33). The article illustrates both the autonomy and degree of partnership involved in this model, as nurses must make vital points of identification about responses of patient treatment and utilize them in conjunction with other professionals.
Review and summarize two scholarly resources (not including your text) related to a nursing care model that is different from the one you observed in the practice setting.
“A multidisciplinary approach to team nursing within a low secure service: the team leader role” by Nagi et al chronicles the reshaping of the team nursing care model for a United Kingdom mental health facility. The article illustrates other care models and the typical characteristics of the team care model. Then, it describes the transformation of the latter model for the aforementioned environment. The capital difference of the approach of the authors is that there is not a single team leader, but rather various “multidisciplinary team leaders” (Nagi et al, 2012, p. 56).
“Team nursing: experiences of nurse managers in acute care settings” by Ferguson and Cioffi leverages a qualitative descriptive study to gain insight into the team nursing care model. Team leaders from acute care settings involving surgery disseminated data about their experiences incorporating this care model into their work. The article revealed advantages and disadvantages with this approach to care. Most prominent among the former was that less experienced staff could work with more experienced staff (Ferguson and Cioffi, 2011, p. 6), eliciting gestalt boons which benefited the entire team. Still, those in team leader positions had a significant amount of responsibility upon which the success of such endeavors largely hinged.
Discuss your observations about how the current nursing care model is being implemented. Be specific.
The nursing care model is implemented via the direct interaction of nurses with patients where the author of this document works. Furthermore, the basis of those interactions is the relationship which the nurses foster with the patient. In that respect there is a degree of autonomy involved—which is central to the nursing care model tenet. Specifically, the author is a labor and delivery nurse and is expected to foment relationships with no more than two patients at a time as the foundation for the care administered to them. As a registered nurse, it is essential that the author is able to complete this part of the care model.
Nonetheless, the autonomy that is an intrinsic part of this paradigm is couched within an equally fundamental collaboration with additional healthcare professionals. Registered nurses work in conjunction with physicians and residents to ensure that patients get holistic treatment from this particular healthcare facility. The RNs provide the impetus for treatment which is in turn informed by the aforementioned personnel. Communication between the primary care nurse and the rest of the healthcare team is vital to the success of this particular implementation. The RNs view the electronic fetal monitoring strip then use nursing knowledge and judgment for appropriate interventions when necessary.
Recommend a different nursing care model that could be implemented to improve quality of nursing care, safety and staff satisfaction. Be specific.
An alternative nursing care model that the author’s care setting could implement to positively influence nursing care, safety and staff satisfaction is the nursing team care model. This model could significantly improve patient safety and staff satisfaction because of the synthesized approach to care it effects. This model requires a collaborative effort in which professionals across the healthcare spectrum work together on patients. Thus, less experienced employees receive the benefit of working in tandem with more experienced employees. The former will have what amounts to a prolonged training period on the job under the supervision of professionals from which they can readily learn. Patient boons of this approach include the knowledge that their treatment is monitored by a group of healthcare employees, so that they are receiving the best treatment from the healthcare facilities human resources.
Specifically, then, this approach could better the timing in which patients receive care. The various team members will be able to monitor patients continuously so that there is little delay in manifesting systems and getting treatment. With the present implementation of the primary nursing care model, there is a hierarchy involved in which physician input for treatment occurs after initial nursing analysis. This staggered approach yields slight delays into treatment. However, with the team approach of the team nursing care model, there are no such delays as the entire team is involved throughout all stages.
Provide a summary/conclusion about this experience/assignment and what you learned about nursing care models.
The main lesson learned from this experience was that nursing care models offer different ways to achieve the same objective. Essentially, all nursing models are simply ways to offer care that is conducive to patients and the particular physiological conditions with which they are dealing. There is no care model that is necessarily better than others. Rather, there are some more appropriate than others because of the settings in which they are implemented. It is ideal to have a degree of flexibility in the type of care a medical facility offers. Going through this assignment helped the author to get a step closer to understanding how to facilitate such flexibility.
References
Ferguson, L., Cioffi, J. (2011). Team nursing: experiences of nurse managers in acute care settings. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing. 28(4), 6-11.
Hambleton, J.M. (1998). A patient resource program: Strengthening primary nursing. Nursing Management. 29(3), 33-34.
Nagi, C., Davies, J., Williams, M., Roberts, C., Lewis, R. (2012). A multidisciplinary approach to team nursing within a low secure service: The team leader role. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. 48, 56-61.
Olstrom, J. Albanese, P. (2006). Implementation of a primary nursing model to optimize patient care and safety in an outpatient chemotherapy unit. Oncology Nursing Forum. 33(2), 447.