Patient Advocacy
Any activity that benefits a patient is referred to as patient advocacy. This concept can be applied to individual patient care, groups that produce policies and guidance for patients, and government groups that develop legislation to enhance patient processes and systems. A nurse’s primary duty in patient advocacy is to support or promote the interests of their patients, whether they are single people or a group of people.
There are a few principles that are primarily connected to patient advocacy. Honoring human dignity, devoting mainly to the patient, defending the patient’s rights, and serving all patients equally are some of these intuitions. Throughout their nursing careers, nurses may have numerous opportunities to advocate for patients, and to get their argument across, they must use both sensitivity and boldness.
Actions That Promote Patient Advocacy
Show Correct Nursing Care
Nurses demonstrate patient advocacy all day long via empathetic, skilled nursing care. Patients’ rights are reaffirmed when they are treated with compassion and honor. It’s critical to ensure that the patient knows what’s going on in the healthcare system. Explain to them that they have the freedom to refuse tests and treatments until they are entirely familiar with them. Other team members may employ advanced healthcare language that the patient does not understand. Take the effort to translate material into daily terms.
Keep the Entire Team Updated
Nurses are often the best qualified to transmit the patient’s desires to the rest of the healthcare team because they have the most direct patient connection. Due to religious and cultural values, specific meal planning, dressing, and family visitation procedures may be required. We must ensure that the patient’s desires are followed while making medical decisions that nurses and other healthcare staff communicate to other team members.
Assist Patients with Social and Financial Issues
Do not allow your patient to leave with a handful of medicine prescriptions they can’t pay, directives for home supplies they can’t access, and guidance they can’t understand. If you believe your patient will be unable to complete their discharge duties due to financial constraints or poverty, contact a social worker within the organization. There are help programs for many named brand prescriptions, and there are sometimes affordable options alternate to the initial medication.
Safe hands HHC makes sure to have nurses and other healthcare staff trained and professionally skilled to promote patient advocacy. The Safe Hands HHC provides the most compassionate care to the patients, where patients feel at home.
