Application of Assessment and Planning By Nurses in Clinical Settings
Introduction
The nursing profession has more to offer than just successful management of patients in hospitals. The skills obtained by nurses throughout their learning and practice have vital applications in the nursing process. For a nurse to effectively manage their patients, they need a good mastery of the nursing process; assessment, planning, evaluation, implementation, analysis and reporting. Nurses, like other workers in the society, have plans and targets in their lives. Goals and targets are set by assessing the strengths and weakness and going for solutions that would work best in the attainment of the set goals (Finkelman, 2010). Though originally designed to facilitate successful care provision to patients, assessment and planning could be applied in other aspects. This paper delves into the application of assessment and planning in self-assessment of my current position and plans for my future goals.
Assessment of current position
All registered nurses are expected, based on their nursing experience, to meet some registered nurse indictors and standards. Those that are not met are then used in the identification of the areas of weakness. Being a registered nurse and by the help of a peer appraisal tool, I managed to do an assessment of my clinical practice. In the assessment I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses as outlined below.
My Strengths and weaknesses
Having a good understanding of the general nursing practice and principles of primary health care is fundamental to a nurse. To start with the knowledge of primary health care is good since I am capable of identifying and integrating its principles. I also understand current national health priorities and capable of identifying needs of the practice community. Identifying and responding to the needs of the community in terms of social and health needs is something I can manage with ease. [“Write my essay for me?” Get help here.]
Being a nurse who maintains good professional relationships with other staff members is of great significance to service delivery, something I perform with ease. To begin with, I always strive to initiate and maintain better professional relationships during my practice with other nurses. I also engage in peer appraisal and professional development events related to nursing practice. Finally I actively take part in assessing junior nurses under my supervision.
All human beings have weaknesses and so I also found out, during my self-assessment, the following areas of weaknesses. To start with, my leadership skills were not that well developed. I always find difficulties in providing collegial support during times of stress. Though I was capable of delegating duties to junior nurses, I always find difficulties in providing clinical leadership to the other staff members.
Empowering and advocating for consumers is a problem on my side. I find it difficult to encourage active participation of consumers in their health care. I also have little knowledge and understanding on consumer advocacy and situations that could call for such. I also have never seen the need of supporting consumers with the help of interested parties in raising their concerns and issues.[Need an essay writing service? Find help here.]
Planning in Terms of my Goals
Just like the case with the nursing process, I was able to come up with a plan that constituted of short-term goals and long-term goals. Short-term goals were to help in the provision of short-term solutions to my problems before implementing my long term-goals. Below is a brief summary of some of the goals.
Short-term goals
I have come up with short-term goals to help me find solutions to some of my problems. I plan to keep abreast with my strengths by increasing my understanding of general nursing and keeping the good professional relationships with other staff members. I also plan to improve my leadership skills through consulting those in senior posts on how they manage it and by reading pertinent literature material on consumer advocacy to improve on consumer empowerment and advocacy.
Long-term goals
My long-term goals are aimed at improving on my areas of weaknesses and at the same time preserve them for use in other fields. I am planning to take a course on leadership skills or human resource management in the future so as to improve on my leadership skills. I also plan to attend classes on consumer advocacy in a field related to nursing. This will further improve my service delivery.[Click Essay Writer to order your essay]
References
Finkelman, A. W., & Kenner, C. (2010). Professional nursing concepts: Competencies for quality leadership. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
