Innovative Ways to Ensure Patient Satisfaction in Nursing Profession

If you are in a nursing profession, you already know how every hospital and healthcare facilities are concerned about delivering high level of patient satisfaction, which is tied to better outcomes and even the profits. However, it is always a challenging task for a patient care provider to ensure such deliverable. Let’s relate this to an innovative concept and see how it would prove useful in nursing.

We all go to restaurant to enjoy with family and friends and have a good time eating the favorites. In the middle of your meal, the manager walks to your table to know how’s the food, how do you like the service or if anything that you feel to speak about. Unless if something was really bad, you would end up saying that everything is fine and you liked it very much. This strategy is something that is used by almost all the restaurateurs to ensure quality and customer satisfaction with their service and food that eventually makes you coming back. Due to this, the staff knows the manager is doing this; thus, they perform at their best.

Similarly, as a nurse, you need to ensure that the patient satisfaction is genuine and the services are focused on caring. The best way to do this is by visiting the patients’ rooms and asking them questions like -

• How good are you feeling today?
• Was the medication given to you on time?
• Does the team here helped to meet your needs.
• Is there anything specific that I can do for you?

Once you do this regularly as a part of your nursing job, you will be surprised to see how much difference this will make for your patients and their families. With this approach, you can quickly identify the problems and rectify them. Moreover, you will get the idea of how the team is performing and you will be able to work on staff development in a better way.

As a nurse, you will be able to help fellow nurses by role modeling and demonstrate that you care and want to make a difference in providing patient care. Whatever you do, all your actions build trust and earn respect with the patients you care.

While there are plethora of advantages of a higher nursing degree, the prime one depends upon what you aspire to be and where do you want to work. Thus, to realize your dream and make big in your career, INSCOL in collaboration with leading Universities/Colleges in Canada/UK/USA/AUS/NZ offers a wide range of specialized Nursing Programs in Emergency Care, Critical Care, Palliative Care, Coronary Care, Acute Complex Care, Mental Health, Leadership & Management, Gerontology & Chronic Illness, Healthcare & Rehabilitation and B.Sc./M.Sc. Nursing. Find more details at http://www.inscol.com/canada/

Here are Some Tips for Nursing Students Straight from the Veterans in their Own Words

Nurses all across the world are finding ways to prosper in their career. Some go for specializing in a field of their choice, while some take up another job with better prospects. There are many who are finding a great alternative to grow in their career through nursing courses that allows them to study as well as work at the same time. Moreover, there are nurses experienced enough that gives some real life tips to them in their own words as published in an article on scrubsmag.com. 

"Always ask questions. None of us knows it all. Nursing is a profession where you are always learning." —Bette G.

"You will not know everything when you get out of nursing school; you will learn more your first year as a nurse than all of your nursing school combined!" —Micha L.

"Remember how excited you were when you began this nursing journey. When you have a bad nursing day,’ go back to yourself on the day you found out you got accepted into nursing school and how excited you were to become a nurse. Helps me get through." —Liz L.

"One of our instructors gave us a good tip: write your first initial and your last name with ‘RN’ following it—nice and big. Place it somewhere you will see it all the time (your mirror, binder or on your desk), and remind yourself of why you chose this path." —Aida M.
 
"If you can squeeze it in—find a job as a PCA or NA somewhere—even if it’s just part-time or PRN. You will learn SO much that will be helpful to your future nursing career, including how to work with your future PCA, etc." —Christie S.

"You will literally have no life outside of nursing school until the day you pass NCLEX. When they tell you that, believe them. My BSN was the hardest thing I ever loved/hated." —Julie B.

"Don’t leave assignments to the last minute. Start the moment you get them." —Lucy C. 

"When in doubt, ask a senior nurse for help! You can’t be a hero alone." —Jimmie B. 

"Trust your gut! First instincts and bad feelings are usually accurate." —Angela M.
 
"Organization is everything! It helps you stay on top of assignments and what to study when. Get yourself a big calendar to put on your wall…write down due dates for assignments, test dates, clinical days, etc. This also helped my family know where I was (class or clinical). I highly recommend making flash cards so you can take them everywhere with you to study." —Brittani T. 

If you are a veteran in the field of patient care, we know you might too have some useful tips for new nurse grads. We will be glad if you can share those with us in the comments here. For more such tips and information on nursing profession, you can visit INSCOL. Moreover, if you want to study and work abroad, you can find detailed information at http://www.inscol.com

The Story of Neonatal Nursing

When it comes to provide care to children, it’s not an easy job for caregivers. Doctors, nurses, healthcare staff, and mental health staff all have stressful jobs to begin with, but when that profession focuses exclusively on children, it seems the stress factor increases exponentially. The best moment in the job of a neonatal nurse comes when she send the baby as well as the parents’ home as a healthy happy bundle of joy. 

This is a profession that requires more care and attention than any other kind of patient care. While providing care for an ill child, a neonatal nurse also has to offer emotional support to the parents of the child. Because of the delicateness of the patients, they are responsible of all the care and feeding of a patient in addition to routine medical tasks. When the infant becomes a bit stronger and adapt to the environment, it’s the job of a neonatal nurse to educate the parents how to handle or avoid equipment while changing, feeding, or cuddling the baby. 

On usual days, a neonatal nurse would have to attend exhausted and worried parents who come for information and answers. This is because they are the ones always available in a nursing care facility, while the doctors are still not around. However, there is little information nurses are allowed to give to the seekers. Another most heartbreaking part of the job is the demise of a patient and if it is a child, the grief raises exponentially for many. Being a nurse, the most she could do for the parents is to hold them and let them cry.

However, the same story keeps on repeating every other day. Thus, for nurses taking care of child ailments, their job is more rewarding than stressful. When they see happy faces leaving the healthcare center, that’s the biggest reward one can have in this profession.

If you are a nurse and think that you can make a difference in lives of others in helping them and caring them, neonatal nursing is the option you must take. If you are a nurse and want to pursue higher education in nursing from top colleges and universities abroad, INSCOL can give you the chance to study as well as work in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA. To know about the top nursing programs In Canada/UK/USA/AUS/NZ visit http://www.inscol.com.

For Nurses Continuing Education is the Answer

Nursing is not an easy profession, with unexpected challenges and job responsibilities; it can become the cause of fatigue, stress and burnout among the nurses. A day in the life of a nurse can have number of things that causes stress to a nurse, like managing other nurses, scheduling shifts, staff shortage, hospital’s code of behavior, rules and regulations, competition from peers and low confidence. There could be more reasons that takes away the energy and motivation from the nurses; however, there are options to deal with the burnout. 

Let’s know them here -

• You can continue your job and keep earning the same while you grin and bear it. (No way!)
• You can leave the profession and forget about the time and money that was spent in your education. (What?)
• You can keep moaning and groaning to your superiors to get things resolved for you. (Not Possible)
• You can think of continuing your education to be in a better position to make your work environment a healthy and happy one while increasing your own skills and self-confidence. (Sounds Good)

It’s not that you need to leave the job and start going back to school for further education. Now, there are many colleges and universities that offer specialty nursing programs for international nurses that also allows them to study and work at the same time. By continuing your education, you will develop interest and feel enthusiastic about the profession once again. It will also help to boost your confidence level and you will begin to enjoy the benefits.

The key here is to find the right nursing program to specialize and the college to pursue your education. Moreover, you also need to see the work opportunities while studying. Thus, taking help from industry professionals is always the wisest decision. Moreover, with their help, you can even get some scholarships that would help to pay the fee for the course. If you want to study and work in a foreign country, you can expect full assistance in your visa processing too.

If you're a nurse feeling burnt out, continuing education is the best answer. Specialize and revive your love for nursing profession with the help of INSCOL. To know more about the courses, intakes, fees and colleges, visit the website at http://www.inscol.com.

How Google Glass Could Be a Boon for Nurses?

The moment you step in to a medical facility for treatment, a nurse wearing Google Glass will have all your information right in front of her eyes, from your personal medical history to current health issues, name of the doctor you are consulting, treatment & medication, real-time stats of blood pressure, heart beat, blood sugar and more such related information.

Easy access to patient information is considered as the biggest benefit a nurse could have from Google Glass. A nurse can quickly locate and see health history of a patient without having to take her hands off a patient or excuse herself from a procedure.

Think about if all the nurses are wearing Google Glass and is integrated with the hospital's database system, communication and interaction among them will be done in the blink of an eye. If the nurse's hands are gloved and dirty, it’s not a good idea to pick up and answer the phone. However,with the help of Google Glass, nurses could easily interact and complete the conversation without leaving the work they are doing. Google Glass can also show text messages and updates via the screen.

Since the introduction, Google Glass works best for information purposes. With continuous development, other medical procedures could be integrated so long as there was a perfected way to make sure that patient information goes to the right place on the hands of right person.

On the other hand, when new technology is introduced into patient care, there is always a concern of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) because Google Glass are devices for personal use primarily. However, such concern could be resolved if these are owned by the healthcare organization and are encrypted on the hospital network.

As technology leaps ahead in future, it will become increasingly available to the mass and technologies like Google Glass won’t be a peculiarity at the bedside, but rather the anticipation. If you are a nurse practicing in a healthcare facility, let us know what your thoughts on Google Glass are.

Vein Viewer - A Technology that Helps to Visualize Veins of a Patient

There’s no one in this world who enjoys poking their veins with needles and healthcare professionals too feels the discomfort in prodding or injecting needles in to the veins of the patients. To ease botheration and help nursing staff in finding the vein, there is a device that illuminates the vein beneath the layer of the skin – it’s the Vein Viewer.

Vein Viewer provides an x-ray like view to allow a nurse or clinician to inject needles in order to withdraw blood from person’s vein. The infrared light used in Vein Viewer makes it easier to see through the layer of skin up to 10mm to 15mm deep. The hemoglobin in the blood absorbs the infrared light and the surrounding tissue reflects it. Vein Viewer then use this information to create a digital HD image, sprucing up the vasculature of the patient.

This technological breakthrough empowers healthcare professionals with benefits pertaining to vein detection and visualization in the most convenient ways. Thereafter, it becomes quite easier to identify the actual point of injecting a needle and in selecting the suitable needle gauge according to the size of the patient’s vein. Eventually, it helps patient care providers to refrain from any potentially problematic structures.

The top most advantage of Vein Viewer is that it provides live visual feedback that helps to confirm the flow both in and out of the veins and monitored before any problems arise. Another advantage of this technology is in being able to navigate a catheter around difficult curves, the ability to see a rolling vein and the ability to confirm proper IV flow.

Additionally, Vein Viewer can easily identify a hematoma and can provide confirmation of peripheral IV situation that helps to avoid medically preventable central lines like PICC or CVC. Healthcare facilities like hospitals, physician’s clinics, aesthetics, emergency, trauma and outpatient centers are gearing up to utilize the benefits of Vein Viewer while providing medical services to the patients.

How You Decided Your Nursing Specialty?

A lot depends upon the situation, the needs, the interest and the motivation to choose the field of specialty in nursing profession. From inclination towards patient care and having a rewarding career in future to real-life lessons that inspires many, there is always something that led nurses to move ahead with their choice of nursing specialty.

On a popular website Scrubs Mag, nurses were asked to share the deciding factor that made them to choose their nursing specialty. Some stated to be destined for the profession before leaving the womb, while some others made a choice after going through strenuous life events and tried different careers before landing on their ultimate career. In this piece of blog, we would share those reasons given by nurses in their own words.

Ellen J. - “I don’t think I ever wanted to do anything else. Med/surg makes it easy to help a variety of people. I love it and have for many, many years.”

Luciana W. -“I had a miscarriage and was all alone in the hospital when I met this nurse who made such an impact on me. She took the time to talk to me. She also gave me a hug. At that moment I thought to myself, ‘I want to do the same for other people, give comfort and show compassion in the most vulnerable time of their lives.'”

Sharon H.- “I am a recovering alcoholic, and as a young, intoxicated female, I was treated pretty badly by a lot of people. When I got sober, I wanted to work with other alcoholics, and so I tried to get training as a CD counselor. Nothing worked. Every door I tried got slammed in my face, and someone kept saying, ‘Why don’t you try nursing?’ So I went to the local college and applied for their nursing program, and doors started opening right and left. In 25 years as a nurse, I have tried other fields, and I always come back to mental health. It is my home!”

Rita D. -“I donated a kidney to a friend and went into nephrology!”

Lee B. -“I always wanted to be like Mary Ellen Walton and wander around the countryside on Old Blue, seeing my patients…I have been a community nurse consultant for 21 years. I wander around the back roads of our county seeing my patients…in an old Saturn.”

Sally C. – “I was affected by a child fatality and ever since have worked in pediatric operating theaters! Making a difference, caring for children and their careers is 110 percent job satisfaction!”

Renata B. -“The hospice where my sister made her grand transition gave me the inspiration to make a transition of my own. My sweetest days come when I help a family assist a loved one cross on to that next stage.”

Selecting the field of specialty in nursing depends on individual’s choice. Just as the reasons mentioned here above of different nurses, you too might have one. You can share with us in the comments below, we will be happy to read what your story is.