There is no doubt that a range of domains of nursing have advanced to a considerable extent over the past few decades. New theories have emerged, reinventing people’s perception of what nursing actually is and what goals a nurse is supposed to accomplish. Moreover, these concepts shape the healthcare area as well, posing new challenges and opening a plethora of new opportunities for therapists, researchers, and patients alike.
Defining the current tendencies that define the future of nursing, one must mention the fact that the redesign of the roles and responsibilities of a nurse is the primary trend in the contemporary nursing environment (Goleman, 2004).The latter change that determines the future of nursing can be viewed as the extension of the recent focus on the significance of emotional intelligence (EI) in the provision of the nursing services to the target patients.
Similarly, the phenomenon of EI has also gained a greater significance in the field of healthcare. A recent study indicates that the use of EI-related concepts, particularly, empathy and the development of self-assessment techniques, help create the environment, in which nurses evolve as experts and, therefore, provide the services of the finest quality. By developing the ability to navigate in the cluster of their emotions, nurses will be able to develop the empathy and compassion required to relate to the patient and improve the quality of the services provided.
The people working in the healthcare domain, in turn, have also been focusing on the promotion of patient-centered care by introducing the concept of EI to it.
In addition, the phenomenon of evidence-based practice, which has been the hallmark of the evolution of both nursing and healthcare, remains as such. More importantly, it is highly likely to remain the leading concept in the further development of nursing and healthcare. Indeed, most of the studies carried out in both domains adopt the EBP approach so that the data retrieved could represent the reality in a manner as accurate as possible.
In fact, it was the collision of the EBP practices and the theory of EI mentioned above that created an entirely new tendency in the designated areas. As a recent research shows, the concept of convergence in nursing has to be interpreted as the latest and by far the most promising trend The theory of convergence as applied to nursing presupposes that the people working in the given domain should incorporate the latest tools for information acquisition and skills training as the means of updating the quality of the corresponding services and the patient care, in general: “The recommendation that nurses lead interprofessional teams in improving delivery systems and care brings to the fore the necessity for new competencies, beyond evidence-based practice (EBP), that are requisite as nurses transform healthcare” (Stevens, 2013, par. 1). In other words, the very foundation of healthcare is being transformed toward the design of more elaborate strategies and the focus on professional education, primarily, self-directed learning.
Similar processes can be observed in healthcare. The promotion of EBP as the foundation for diagnosing a problem, locating the most efficient tools for addressing it, and creating the environment, in which the process of recovery will occur in a fast manner: “integrated care has changed the training needs of social workers, particularly the need for training in use of evidence-based practices” (Spitzer & Davidson, 2013, p. 977).
Finally, the necessity to focus on the self-directed professional evolution of both nurses and healthcare service members should be brought up as the possible future tendency in both nursing and healthcare. As it has been stressed above, the importance of raising the quality standards in both domains has risen greatly over the past few decades. Herein lies the need to promote the further acquisition of professional skills and development of personal qualities by healthcare experts and nurses.
While there is an impressive gap between the realm of nursing and the one of healthcare, the tendencies of their further development are strikingly similar. Moreover, these tendencies are driven by similar factors, such as the realization of the significance of a consistent progress and the necessity to evolve, thus, gaining new competencies and becoming proficient in the designated area.
Thus, it can be assumed that the future of nursing and healthcare is rather bright. With a close focus on the latest technological innovations and their application in the corresponding setting to improve the quality of services and increase the competencies of the staff, one may expect a rapid and quite impressive improvement. One must admit that there are a plethora of obstacles standing in the way of contemporary healthcare and nursing organizations, which primarily concern carrying out studies of the topical issues. Nevertheless, the overall course of the healthcare and nursing development is quite promising. By focusing on patient-centered therapy and promoting the further acquisition of EI, among nurses, one is likely to prompt further progress.
Advancing Global Health Through Research and Evidenced –Based Practice: A Student Perspective
The significance of EBP as the foundation for the further development of the healthcare field can hardly be underrated. In the environment of globalization, there is a necessity to cater to the needs of patients of different cultures and belonging to different social tiers. As a rule, the process of intercultural communication is viewed as excessively complicated, and the participants are interpreted as exposed to the increasingly high threat of a conflict. A cross-cultural misunderstanding, in its turn, is bound to affect the quality of the services provided, not to mention the deplorable effects that it may have on the patient’s health. Therefore, it is imperative that the tools for a successful intercultural communication between a patient and the member of the healthcare service should be utilized. The use of EBP, in its turn, helps the process of creating an intercultural connection between the participants, thus, promoting the further patient-focused approach.
At this point, the gravity of the lack of cross-cultural practices in the contemporary healthcare and nursing areas needs to be brought up. The importance of establishing a strong link between a patient and a nurse or a patient and the healthcare expert is rather self-explanatory; unless the proper links are created, the patient will be unable to communicate their needs efficiently, and the recovery process will occur at a very slow pace. Therefore, for a student, it is crucial to consider the opportunities that various skills of cross-cultural communication open in front of the expert working in the healthcare or the nursing domain. The need to incorporate evidence-based practice in the contemporary nursing and healthcare domains for a student is primarily predetermined by the need to realize the significance of observations as the primary tool for identifying a problem and the means of resolving it. In other words, the use of EBP in the environment of the globalized world serves as the means of conveying the message that each case, be it a nursing or a healthcare concern, has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It would be wrong to claim that the promotion of EBP as the foundation for nursing and healthcare in the global community dismisses the significance of theory. Quite on the contrary, the usage of the corresponding approaches provides an opportunity for students learning nursing or healthcare basics to see how the conceptual frameworks can be applied to address actual issues.
The focus on the unceasing acquisition of new information concerning the patients and their culture, as well as the promotion of the need to build a strong and efficient communication strategy allowing for a connection with the patient, is crucial for students as the above issue determines the process of unceasing knowledge acquisition as a part and parcel of a nurse or a healthcare expert. To remain relevant in the designated environment and provide the services of the finest quality, a student must be aware of the fact that they will have to focus on learning in the course of practice, therefore, developing the skill of self-directed educational process. As a result, students learn to carry out a vast and all-embracive analysis of the factors that their patients are exposed to, therefore, designing the treatment strategy that addresses the needs of individuals and promises to deliver stellar outcomes.
To put it differently, the adoption of the EBP tools to the research of healthcare- and nursing-related issues helps students discover the significance of health equity. The latter is typically defined as a comparative analysis of differences in the health concern and the quality of the corresponding services provision all over the world. Seeing that the issues related to cross-cultural communication mentioned above are likely to emerge in a multicultural setting of contemporary nursing and healthcare, students must learn to address specific problems in the contexts of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. It is also quite remarkable that, by using EBP as the primary tool for research, the students will learn that the introduction of complete equality into the two domains in question is practically impossible due to the sociocultural issues and the specifics of different cultures. Consequently, students learn to approach the problems that they face viewing them through the lens of a specific environment. In other words, the prerequisites for a detailed analysis of the unique environment of a certain case and the isolation of the specific factors that affect the patient’s health can be carried out. Consequently, the quality of the corresponding services can be increased significantly, thus, leading to a faster recovery of the patient.
Hence, the usage of EBP as the basis for carrying out research by students and scholars alike has to be encouraged as one of the primary means of introducing a decent quality management strategy into the realm of healthcare and nursing. As long as students recognize the necessity to acquire the necessary experience and develop the skills that will help them promote patient-centered therapy, healthcare and nursing services will be improved greatly.
The Alarming Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Population Health Indicators
Although each case of a specific disease or disorder is unique and requires an original approach, one can still identify patterns in the development and the subsequent treatment of diseases and disorders in particular countries. More importantly, the patterns above can be attributed to certain socioeconomic factors, the unavailability of financial resources and information for increasing awareness among the target members of the population being the key ones.
Traditionally, several essential public health indicators are identified. These include the mortality rates, the average life expectancy, cause-specific mortality, as well is comorbidity, the rates of infectious diseases contraction among the target denizen of the population, the rates of health service coverage, the risk factors that the population is exposed to, the infrastructure of the local health services and community along with the medicine that is available in the local drug stores, health expenditure, and inequity rates. Each of the indicators listed above cannot be viewed as set and is, instead, influenced by a large variety of factors, the socioeconomic ones being the ones of the greatest influence since recently (WHO, 2012). The latest increase in the effects of the above factors on the public health indicators can be rendered as a rather disturbing tendency since the effects are deemed as rather negative.
For instance, one must mention that the facto typically identified as education defines the life expectancy, the rates of infectious disease contraction, and the overall wellbeing of patients to a huge extent. The given phenomenon can be explained by the fact that, to be able to remain in good health, one needs to stay informed about the tools for maintaining a proper health rate, the health threats that one is exposed to, the means of identifying the symptoms of a particular disease, the ways to seek healthcare assistance, etc. As a rule, the person that has received the basic education is capable of identifying the sources of information that will allow for a minimum self-education on the subject matter. Illiterate denizens of the population, in their turn, are doomed to suffer from numerous health issues and are likely to have a much shorter life expectancy.
Similarly, the economic factor of financial resources at the disposal of the patients is not to be underrated, either. The increasingly high costs for healthcare and nursing services make it very complicated for people belonging to the lower class to receive the necessary services. Moreover, the changes in the state economy leading to financial inequality trigger inequity among patients, therefore, blocking people’s way to receiving proper health treatment and causing even higher mortality rates as well as more numerous instances of infectious diseases contraction.
The availability of.drugs in local stores is, perhaps, one of the few issues that the socioeconomic tendencies in the contemporary society may affect positively. For example, the fact that the contemporary world is represented by a global economic community with a set of large supply chains proves that the process of delivering the necessary drugs to remote corners of the earth and, therefore, catering to the needs of the people who would not be able to get the required treatment otherwise is a huge advantage. The evolution of science and the emphasis on EBP in research also contributes to the enhancement of the treatment strategies adopted worldwide. Unfortunately, making an efficient use of the specified advantage may become a problem because of the above issues regarding the lack of economic equity among the members of the global community, in general, and the residents of specific states, in particular.
For example, a recent study addressing the same problem points to the fact that the current socioeconomic factors, which can be characterized as enhancing financial inequality among the members of the global society, affects the provision of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in a highly negative way: “Differences in the RRT incidence, prevalence, and modality vary depending on socioeconomic status of the region” (Calice-Silva et al., 2015). The authors, therefore, indicate that the unavailability of the tools that permit the provision of high-quality services triggers an increase in mortality rates and a drop in life expectancy as well as the overall life quality rates.
Defining the ways of addressing the problem outlined above, one must mention the possibility of creating a worldwide health initiative that could be founded on the basis of charity and provide services to the people in need by delivering the necessary medications to the remote areas and offering free treatment to the people that are in a dire situation and whose choices are restricted by a tough economy. Since the life expectancy rates are becoming increasingly lower in the areas where people cannot obtain the healthcare and nursing services of the necessary quality, it is imperative that a corresponding health initiative should be created to shed light on the problem and resolve it successfully.
Factors That Influence Nurse Educators Perceptions, Attitudes, and Knowledge of Evidenced Based Practice
Identifying the barriers that most nurses and healthcare experts face in the modern environment, one must admit that the issues under analysis are far from being original. Despite the introduction of a range of innovative tools and strategies, including the promotion of the latest technology use and the emphasis on self-directed learning in the course of EBP, most nurses still suffer from the lack of time and the inability to locate the existing sources of knowledge , as a recent study shows (Rezaei, Naderi, Mahmoudi, Rezaei, & Hashemian, 2015).
It should be noted that the two issues listed above affect not only the acquisition of knowledge and skills among nurses in the environment of global EBP. Although the lack of time and informational literacy affect primarily the process of knowledge acquisition, they also shape nurses’ attitudes to an impressive degree. Particularly, the lack of personal and professional development in the workplace, which the above factors expose nurses to, trigger an immediate and inevitable drop in motivation rates. Motivation, in its turn, is an essential component of any healthcare and nursing practice as it defines the efficacy of the services and the nurse’s ability to learn in the course of carrying out the EBP-related procedures. Motivation and enthusiasm, in their turn, also define the ability of the nurse to express empathy toward a patient. The latter is a crucial concept that the principles of EBP are based on; once removed from the daily routine of a nurse, it will prevent the latter form creating a connection with the patient. As a result, the nurse will not be able to retrieve the required amount of information from the customer, facing the threat of making a mistake in the course of diagnosing a problem, designing a treatment strategy, or providing the above treatment to the patient. As a result, the quality of services will drop inevitably, and the patient’s life, not to mention health, will be endangered.
The time issue is also not as easy to resolve as it might seem. The process of scheduling the nurses’ work is complicated and requires a lot of hard work, which makes it barely possible to alter it so that the staff could use some rest. In addition, the current shortage in nurses in most hospital or other healthcare facilities’ setting shows quite clearly that the scheduling issue is an incredibly difficult task. A closer look at the subject matter will demonstrate that these are not nurses and healthcare staff members who should be blamed for the problems concerning time and schedule. The unavailability of high-quality human resources, which a range of hospitals across the world experience, serves as the lead cause of poor scheduling strategies.
However, studies show that the time issue needs to be addressed as soon as possible (Rezaei et al., 2015). According to the latest research on the subject matter, the increase in the workplace burnout rates among nurses clearly is a troubling sign that proves the need to address the concern:
40.8% of nurses working in hospital emergency mentioned, were suffering from emotional exhaustion frequently. Intensity of emotional exhaustion by 41.7% was at low-frequency, depersonalization by 40.8% was at moderate level, severe depersonalization by 41.7% was much, number of feelings as an incompetent person was 40.8% which was much and the feeling intense of incompetent person was equally 36.9% and it has been a low-high value. (Rezaei et al., 2015, p. 119)
Therefore, there is an obvious need to introduce the tools that will help nurses manage their time in a more efficient manner. The incorporation of the latest technology as the means of hand-off communication among nurses could be viewed as a possible solution. In addition, technological advances could be used to enhance the process of data transfer from one expert to another. The adoption of the above devices will also help reinforce the efficacy of transferring data among the representatives of different healthcare and nursing domains, which is another problem, as a study by Kaur and Bhambri (2015) proves.
It should be noted, though, that the time pressure and the lack of motivation for adopting the self-directed learning strategy in the EBP setting are not the only problems that shape the nurses’ educational perceptions, knowledge, and knowledge of EBP. For instance, the latter are also affected significantly by the lack of training necessary to make decisions instantly needs to be brought up. Indeed, the lack of efficient programs aimed at improving nurses’ and healthcare members’ expertise is among the disadvantages of the current healthcare and nursing settings’ design. However, these are the lack of time and information sources that lies at the core of most of the corresponding concerns. Once the hospital staff members are provided with updated technology and informational resources, a giant leap forward in the progress of the above areas is expected. Therefore, it is crucial that the leaders of healthcare and nursing institutions should develop a sustainable approach towards using the available human and technological resources.
Reference List
Calice-Silva, V., Hussein, R., Yousif, D., Zhang, H., Usvyat, L., Campos, L. G.,… & Pecoits-Filho , R. (2015). Associations between global population health indicators and dialysis variables in the Monitoring Dialysis Outcomes (MONDO) Consortium. Blood Purif, 39(1-3), 125–136. Web.
Goleman, D. (2004). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, 82(1), 82-91.
Kaur, R., & Bhambri , P. (2015). Information retrieval system for hospital management. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Consortium, 2(4), 16-21.
Rezaei, J., Naderi, S., Mahmoudi, E., Rezaei, S., & Hashemian, A. H. (2015). Job burnout rate and related demographic factors in nursing personnel employed in emergency departments of chosen educational hospitals by Kermanshah University of Medical Science in 2012. Advances in Biological Research, 9(2): 117-127. Web.
Stevens, K. (2013). The impact of evidence-based practice in nursing and the next big ideas. OJIN, 18(2). Web.
WHO. (2012). World health statistics. Web.