Essays on Health Care Practitioners

Discuss the indications for each type of monitoring device

Fetal Monitor The heart rhythm and heart rate are main indicators for the fetal monitor. The indicators help in understanding the fetal condition, which is a necessary factor to consider during labor and the delivery of a child. During the process of labor and delivery, the health care personnel is required to monitor the heart rate and rhythm of the fetus (Shore, Benson-Karhi, Malamud, & Bashiri, 2014). Monitoring of heart rate and rhythm helps in identifying any form of distress within the fetus that may have occurred during the labor and delivery process.

Internal Fetal Scalp Electrode

The Fetal scalp electrode is an internal ...

Importance of Nursing Informatics in Healthcare

Introduction One of the key factors for effective decision-making for nurses and other healthcare practitioners is information. It is also integral to the quality improvement of the practice of nursing. In most of the activities of nurses such as from assessing the health care needs of patients up to the developing of health care plans, information acquisition and evaluation is required. Information is also involved in the communication patients regarding the information to and from the other health care practitioners (Canadian Nurses Association np). Lastly, information is also involved in the analysis of the staff’s work as well ...

Abstract

Obesity among young children is on the rising trajectory. Research journals about obesity focus on the causes of obesity and mitigating interventions for childhood obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control in the United States, obesity cases pose a health risk to children and thus there is need to prevent it. Medical practitioners in most health care centers are also worried with the increase of the cases of obesity among the young generation. Ebbelin, Pawlak & Ludwig, (2002) suggests that the increase in the cases of obesity has resulted in a high number of cardiovascular infections among the youths. ...

Abstract

The transformation of the Primary Care Practices (PCP) into The Patient- Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model is expected to improve patient’s care, comprising even the ones with complex needs. According to Rich et.al (2012), PCMH is expected to reduce the risks associated with fragmented care and poor outcomes. The paper will also address factors as whether or not patient health care needs and even preferences are being met, whether the care is appropriate for the illness, timeliness, and procedures involved. Moreover, it will comprehensively address the state of provider contracting and its direction in the future. Nonetheless, the ...

Introduction

Knowledge and wisdom are the fundamental elements of the nursing practice. Health care practitioners apply a wide range of theoretical and practical knowledge and approaches in their roles. In the contemporary age, In today’s context health care professionals need a significant amount of data and new knowledge for the purpose of delivering appropriate and quality health care services to the patients. The major question developed within the framework of this paper is clinical simulation and its role in health care practice. The crucial importance of this matter "is on the point of having a significant impact on health ...

Leadership and management concerns in the organization encompass diverse concepts ranging from the application of appropriate leadership style, skills and traits, depending on the situation, the subordinates’ personalities, and that of the leader; as well as discerning varied situations that necessitate an analytical analysis of alternative courses of action that would assist problem solving and decision making. To comply with the requirements of the current discourse, the aim is to describe the different approaches of nursing leaders and managers to issues pertinent to continuous quality improvement and patient satisfaction, which is included in the list.

Continuous Quality Improvement and Patient Satisfaction

In a health care environment, ...

Arguably, smoking is among the most dangerous behaviors that cause harm to human health. Just, like the use of drugs and alcohol, smoking is not exceptions on its effects to health. As a matter of fact, debates have been there for a long time on the legalization and criminalization of smoking based on health issue. In the 21st century, the number of minors smoking is increasing tremendously. Therefore, the law enforcing agencies and health care practitioners should look into the issue critically. Through critical analysis, the criminalization of health related conduct should take place.

Undeniably, on a personal level I believe that ...

Introduction

A memorable case written upon the pages of medical history books is Karen Quilain whose parents went to court in order for doctors to remove her ventilator. She lived nine years after this health care intervention, dying from pneumonia (Quinlan, 1977). The health care practice here relates to removing life support. There have been countless research studies showing where blood transfusion practices have been detrimental to patients because either the blood was old or contaminated. Also, organ donation policies regarding the non-heart beating donor often resulted in patients’ relatives opting for donation without prior consent of the unconscious patient ...

People with Disabilities and Their Families

Assisted Suicide Introduction Death is usually considered to be something appalling that everyone should avoid or overcome. However, no matter how modernized our medical technologies are, dying is an unavoidable thing in life. In this regard, there are concerns involving physician assisted suicide that can be depicted as a proceeding wherein the patient is agreeable to end their suffering with the assistance of a physician. Physician assisted kind of suicide or death is a process of prescribing a certain medication to a patient with an intention of ending his or her own life by way of eliminating the extreme pain voluntarily by ...

The US has one of the biggest and inefficient health care systems in the world, which despite the high per capita expenditure, has failed to provide efficient and dependable coverage to the poorest populations (Blank, 2012, p. 416). One of the reasons for the high costs and poor coverage is the high fragmentation in the system, role duplication, and flawed performance measurement and reward systems for care providers. This is worsened by rising costs (in part due to high costs of drugs and medical equipment), unpredictability of the economy, and rising lifestyle diseases (e.g. diabetes and heart diseases) that ...

Introduction

Nursing care refers to the process of protecting, promoting and optimizing health, prevention of injuries and illness, and alleviation of suffering in humans. Understanding nursing care requires a comprehensive study of the discipline (Iyer 29). Many people do not understand what the nursing discipline entails especially in the medical profession that is characterized by many stakeholders. With the human population growing every day, the need for better health care is becoming more and more important. Furthermore, the types and methods incorporated into nursing practice have evolved very much. The roles and routines in most health care ad and nursing facilities ...

What are specific ways to limit the potential for power abuse in health care organizations?

Health care organizations are managed and governed by leaders. Just like in other private or public organization, leaders are perceived to possess sources of power by virtue of their role, position, and responsibilities in the organization . When there is power, there are potentials for abuse. As emphasized, “the abuse may take the form of a demeaning attitude, ridicule, off-color jokes, sexual harassment, or even physical violence” . The recipients of power abuse could be various stakeholders in the health care environment: employees, patients, health care practitioners, and third party affiliates. phone skills) and people skills” . What specific human resource ...

The critical moment1 (slide 18) in my life, I believe, came when I volunteered as a nurse assistant at a local hospital, during which time I first witnessed a patient die. The patient, who was a Jehovah’s Witness adherent, had refused care despite having been in critical care for several days. This was a relatively small and under-staffed hospital, so I was charged with more responsibilities than warranted my position. Other than cleaning up, I was also asked to liaise with the relatives to accede to a blood transfusion. I happened to be in the room, when the patient actually died. I went into ...

“The Power to Cure, Multiplied”

Reaction Paper to a News Article: “The Power to Cure, Multiplied” The article entitled “The Power to Cure, Multiplied” written by Bornstein (2014) and published online in The New York Times on June 11, 2014 presented relevant concerns regarding a revolutionary treatment for chronic Hepatitis C. The information disclosed by Bornstein reported the more effective method of treatment through the proposed intervention of a certain hepatologist, Dr. Sanjeev Arora, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Dr. Arora allegedly conceptualized Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) as more effective than traditional treatment procedures at the University of New Mexico’ ...

Introduction

The concept of ethics in the healthcare industry has evolved over time and every stakeholder in the sector should strive on improving services delivery and attaining maximum patient satisfaction. Ethics in the healthcare industry involves making the good decisions and judgments that are universally acceptable. The code of ethics in the healthcare industry expresses the responsibilities and defines rules that every health care worker, physician, and nurse must follow while attending patients. These people undergo health education that makes them understand legal and ethical concerns, patient confidentiality and informed consent (Baum, Gollust, Goold & Jacobson, 2007). The following discussion analyzes ...

The portion of the statement with the greatest significant meaning is that “physical therapy will be provided by physical therapists who are doctors of physical therapy”. This is because the function of physical therapists in health care has continued to expand over the years. Physical therapists are essentially health care professionals tasked with diagnosing and offering care for people with health issues or ailments that limit abilities such as movement in their daily activities. Initially, vocational education was just enough for one to enter the field of physical therapy. However, as the field advanced, the training required also had ...

Among the four principles of ethics, beneficence is considered as the most important. Non-maleficence, justice and then autonomy, in that order, then follow it. This is because beneficence is a key pillar of ethics in health that considers the patient as the centre of attention (Morrison E. & Furlong B. 2014). The care given should purely focus on the maximum satisfaction of the patient. Since the patient is the centre of attention, as much benefit as possible of the health care provided will thus derived from the health care model (Pozgar G. 2011). If all the health care services provided conform ...

A country’s healthcare plays a significant role in ensuring the growth of the economy as a whole because people who are sick have low productivity. As a result, government has to allocate funds for the healthcare system so that people can access treatment easily and at an affordable price. Through the allocation of funds, the health care system can account for everyone in the country, rural and urban. This has not been the case. The management of health care system is precisely low compared to those living in the urban areas. Those in the urban areas can enjoy good healthcare whereas ...

How realistic is it to expect health care workers to model mental, physical, and spiritual health?

Health care workers are expected to embody all the characteristics and traits which manifest living a healthy life. This is crucial so that they become the perfect models of physical, mental, and spiritual health. As emphasized in a study reported by MacReady (2012), there could be potential problems when healthcare workers seem to have problems of practicing what they preach. As health care practitioners, they are expected to have gained greater in-depth understanding of health issues, including maintaining a health disposition through holistic observance of balanced diet, exercise, and regular check-ups through theoretical frameworks and work experience.

If Americans tend to be overweight, underactive workaholics who experience burnout, why should health care workers be any different?

Health care workers should exhibit ...

Wound care, especially the management of chronic wounds is a costly affair. It is estimated that for every 1000 patients, 3.5 have a wound (Shepherd & Nixon, 2013). This implies that considerable resources are spent in the management of wounds. For instance, in the US, $2.8 billion is spent annually in the management of about 3-5 million chronic wounds. Chronic wounds negatively impact on the quality of life of affected patients since they affect their comfort, mobility, emotional well-being, life satisfaction, create caregiver burden, and time is spent seeking medical care (Buckley, Adelson, & Agazio, 2009). The implementation of prospective payment systems has ...

The hospital selected from among the top 20 of the top 100 hospitals in the United States is Mount Sinai Medical Center. A closer review of the hospital through accessing its official website indicates that the institution has had a long history of exemplary performance as it was reportedly established in 1852, or 161 years ago. It has a reported bed-capacity numbering 1,171 and has consistently been named among the top 20 hospitals in the United States. As length of years of service to the health care industry is not a criterion for excellence, one strongly believes that the facets that ...

British Journal of Community Nursing, 2013, Volume 18, Number 1, Pages 40 to 42

Summary of Article The article entitled “A ‘good death’ at home: community nurses helping to make it possible” was written by Elizabeth Adamson and Susanne Cruickshank and published in the British Journal of Community Nursing in 2013. The authors presented relevant concerns regarding the increasing trend of addressing end-of-life choices of patients, particularly opting to die at their respective homes. This trend was allegedly supported by thrusts in government policies which acknowledge adherence to conform to patients’ preferences for addressing end-of-life situations. The authors have emphasized that the role of community nurses were seen as instrumental in attending ...

Introduction

The basic managerial functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling of all facets of the organization are applicable to the operations management area. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), general and operations managers’ duties and responsibilities actually include “formulating policies, managing daily operations, and planning the use of materials and human resources, but are too diverse and general in nature to be classified in any one functional area of management or administration, such as personnel, purchasing, or administrative services” . From the industries identified in the BLS which exhibited the highest concentration of employment for operations managers, the ...

First responders are at the frontline of gruelling human experiences, which have considerable effects on their psychological health. The provision of care to them is often complicated by the difficulty of accurately diagnosing, owing to the scarcity of information of information, and the failure to capture information opportunities that could be crucial for the very purposes. Communication and management information systems can play a critical role in encouraging first responders to open up, while at once giving health care practitioners considerable information to assess potential risk factors and the psychological welfare and needs. This paper provides a detailed description of then ...

The management of chronic diabetes self-care programs is mainly the responsibility of the patient. In primary care, nurses normally emphasize the prevention of complications and adherence to diabetes self management regimes. However, compliance to diabetes self-care programs is always a challenge for many diabetes patients. Diabetes self-management programs require patients to make many lifestyle and dietary changes. Diabetes patients need to be highly motivated to adopt and conform to the lifestyle changes in diabetes self-care programs (Perry & Collins, 2009). This paper describes the process of implementing a protocol for motivational interviewing for diabetes patients at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, Texas. ...

Evaluation parameters

The effectiveness of motivational interviewing techniques in eliciting behavioral change is determined by the skill of the health care practitioners in using motivational interviewing techniques and the degree of collaboration by the patient. The success of Motivational interviewing is determined by how best it motivates people in meeting the goals of the change process (Butler et al, 2007). In this change program on the use of motivational interviewing to motivate diabetic patients to embrace positive lifestyles, the effectiveness of motivational intervention can be evaluated on how it meets the health outcomes of the diabetic patients. The overall ...

Operationalization of motivational interviewing in primary care for diabetes patients

` The institutionalizing of motivational interviewing techniques in patient care is always a challenge for many health care organizations. The process is costly because it requires continuous training of health care providers, great involvement of health care practitioners and periodic evaluation (Butler et al, 2007). In the process of operationalizing motivational interviewing for diabetes care, it is necessary for the management of health care organizations to provide the necessary resources and support for training of health practitioners and the evaluation of the operationalization process.

Proposed budget for the operationalization of motivational interviewing for diabetes patients.

Activity Timeline Cost in dollars Initial training of primary care providers in ...

Motivational interviewing is a very gentle, emphatic and skillful style of counseling that can help health care practitioners have some fruitful conversation with patients suffering from co-occurring and other lifestyle disease. Motivational interviewing is characterized by empathy through the process of reflective listening, avoiding argumentation and encouraging the client that there is hope of changing (Burke et al, 2007). Motivational interviewing also involves gently persuasion, listening rather than instructing, and providing support to patients throughout the process of recovery. Motivational interviewing is a collaborative conversation and a decision making process between a health practitioner and the patient receiving treatment (Miller & Arkowitz, 2007). ...

Medical ethics refers to moral principles usually applied in the medical practice to ensure that professional, ethical, and religious concepts are utilized effectively among health care practitioners. Health care practitioners should use medical ethics during the analysis of medical cases. This is to make sure that physician’s or nurses’ professionalism is promoted while protecting the well being of the patients. The practice of medical ethics in the health care setting can be traced from the time of Hippocratic Oath and the first code of medical ethics in the 5th century. Over the years, physicians, lawyers, theorists and doctors ...

The ethics of a patient refusal of treatment

Given a situation where a patient refuses a novel treatment procedure, or medication that is very essential for his treatment, would it be in the best interests of health care practitioner to force a patient to accept medication or a treatment procedure?

The ethics manual of the American college of physicians defines the primary commitment of the Health care practitioner to the patient as the best welfare of patients. However, sometimes patients may refuse to take any form of treatment procedure or medication proposed by a health care practitioner. In such situations, there are ethical issues and conflicts that arise between the ethical principles that ...

Implementation of an evidence-based practice program

The pool of medical workers who graduated more than a decade ago actually increases every year, and whether we like it or not, they may have missed a lot of medical updates and new practices during their time in clinics or academia. A medical professional has to stay updated with the latest trends and practices in the medical field because he may be able to use these trends in treating and administering proper plans of care to his patients. Evidence-based practice has the potential to improve overall patient outcomes because it uses valid, researched, and tested evidence that serve as options ...

Horizontal Hostility in Nursing

Lateral or horizontal hostility among medical practioners represents in a long line impediments that have hampered efforts aimed at assuring and improving the quality of healthcare services within key healthcare institutions. Specifically, the management of many healthcare organizations has been involved in initiating cases or situations that are more likely to hamper communications and relationships between health care practitioners despite the existence of management policies, strategies, and interventions. Lack of efficient and high quality healthcare service delivery and poor communication among healthcare practitioners can be attributed to the escalating cases of horizontal hostility among health care practitioners. A survey conducted ...

Outline

Introduction-Thesis Statement This research paper explores the reforms made in the health care sector to ease service delivery and access to health care and include: insurance reform; quality of health care; cost and efficiency; reform of health service provider’s incentives; and tax reforms. Health care reform eliminates the disparities in provision of health care and ensures smooth running of operations in the health care sector

Discussion

Insurance Reforms These reforms aim to make insurance rules and regulations more flexible and thus more accessible to the public and to reduce the manipulative tendencies of many insurance companies.

Quality of Health Care

Reforms ...

Introduction

Provision of excellent health care services should be the key objective for any professional health practitioner. According to health policies and regulations, health care practitioners are required or expected to act within the Hippocratic Oath as stipulated by the governing policies and principles. One of the core principles or standard which a health practitioner is expected to uphold is to ensure maximum life protection is offered or created to the involved clients. Lack of meeting or adhering to such principles can be termed to be negligence of one’s duty. Consequently, the aftermath associated with negligence of duty can be ...