Arguably one of the most difficult parts of being a nurse is delivering bad news to patients and their families.
Whether you’re informing a patient of an unfavorable diagnosis or telling someone their loved one has passed away, the situation is emotionally draining and one nurses dread.
To help make the task a little easier, here are a few tips for breaking bad news.
Sometimes, the most challenging obstacle a physician can face is establishing a strong connection with their patient.
The benefits of a good physician-patient relationship are numerous—higher patient satisfaction, better diagnostic accuracy, increased compliance to treatment plans and improved outcomes, to name a few—but breaking down the barrier between clinicians and patients can be difficult.
Here are five ways physicians can build better patient relationships.
The demand for primary care is increasing, largely due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which granted healthcare access to many who were previously uninsured or underinsured.
A study conducted by Association of American Medical Colleges projected the demand for physicians to increase by 11 percent to 17 percent between 2013 and 2025. While demand for this type of care is increasing, the current trend shows a shortage of primary care physicians.
What can private practices do to ensure they can continue to meet the needs of their patients? One way is to tap into the skills of nurse practitioners to help fill in these gaps.
The American Association of Nurse Practitioners reports that there are more than 222,000 nurse practitioners (NP) licensed in the U.S. NPs are considered advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) which allows them to assess patients, make diagnoses and prescribe medication, with or without physician oversight dependent on location.
This article will explore the benefits these clinicians can bring to your practice and how they can help you meet the growing demand for care.
Whether a child is taking a math test or playing in a championship or receiving treatment in a hospital, he or she is bound to be anxious.
Just as a teacher has study guides to help the student get ready for the test or a coach runs drills to help the athlete be confident for the game, healthcare providers (and parents) can help pediatric patients prepare for a hospital stay using medical play.
Medical play is a therapeutic approach that uses real and pretend medical equipment, stuffed animals and dolls to assist pediatric patients in understanding not only the hospital itself but also what is happening with their own bodies. It is focused on activities that both enable a child to respond effectively to difficult medical situations and also support the child’s normal development.
In this post, we’ll discuss the best ways to leverage medical play and the benefits it can provide to pediatric patients, their parents and healthcare professionals.
Hospital management teams are always on the lookout for methods to trim costs and improve efficiency. Since nurses account for a large percentage of the hospital staff, a frequently used strategy to decrease costs is to reduce the number of nurse labor hours. However, considering the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has placed greater emphasis on value-based care, the appropriate nurse-to-patient ratio is essential to guarantee patients receive the highest quality care.
Traditional nurse staffing systems fail to account for certain variables, resulting in staff shortages and an inability for nurses to spend adequate time caring for their patients. Newer staffing models are more flexible and can be adjusted to fit not only the needs of the entire hospital but also the needs of individual units.
Here are four approaches hospitals can take to ensure safe nurse-to-patient ratios.
