Nurse’s primary responsibility is an advocate and caring for people who require medical attention or assistance. Nursing has remained under-explored with the vast majority of people today classifying nurses as caregivers with few knowing there are specific roles nurses qualify to perform during their career. For people that have been admitted to a medical facility over a few days, it soon becomes apparent that nurses perform different roles and responsibilities for each of the roles. When admitted to a hospital several nurses attend to the patient, with each one performing different tests and recording specific data. This article will discuss the different roles through which understand how nurses operate and care for patients.
Recording a patient’s medical history and illness symptoms
One of the main roles of a nurse to assess., monitor and record a patient’s medical history and illness symptoms which are verified by the assigned doctor for a final diagnosis and treatment. Nurses are the first point of contact for the patient as doctors and surgeons may be occupied and busy with other patients. It is, therefore, the nurse’s responsibility to perform a pulmonary assessment and record the patient’s vitals, as well as administer urgent first aid if required. This makes it important for the nurse to have a good grasp of medical conditions and trauma management for them to make informed decisions to prevent further damage or harm to a patient. Nurses handling trauma patients such as accident victims need to assess the patient’s physical and psychological state and determine the patient’s injuries. In case of accident patients, open wounds need to be dressed and x-rays of fractured bones taken to speed up diagnosis and treatment. Patients need to be assessed for internal and external bleeding and evasive actions taken to prevent the patient from suffering further damage or death.
Nursing plan for patient care
Once a patient’s vital has been stabilized, the nurses handling a patient need to be assembled to create a plan for care and treatment. This will require the steps linked to patient care and treatment requirements to first be identified based on which the plans can be designed. After admission and pulmonary assessment, the head doctor and surgeons will assess the patient and recommend treatments. Nursing assignment help care will require being available for the patient always starting from admission, to assessment, through surgery, treatment, rehabilitation and follow-up care. Nurses are involved in each step of treatment thus a detailed nursing plan must be developed for each patient.
Advocate for the health and wellbeing of the patient
Nurses are also responsible for communicating with patients relating to the health services and treatment procedures. This information needs to be shared with the health care facilities administrators and medical staff to help highlight patient concerns which can be used to help streamline processes to improve the patient’s experience in the future. In addition to offering care, the nurses are directly responsible for advocating the patients’ needs which help improve the health care delivered by the healthcare facilities and professionals.
Monitor patient health and record signs
Nurses are also responsible for monitoring patients before, during and after treatment. This is very important as they report the patient’s progress and can report issues to head doctors and surgeons before health issues escalate. Each patient’s records are maintained individually and patterns of treatment and responses recorded which helps the healthcare professionals detect patterns relating to patients responses to the treatment. This is important as it helps determine medications. Approaches and other treatment criteria a medical facility is using to treat patients which may be more effective than others. This information can then be reviewed to deliver important finding which can be published on medical journals and shared with other medical facilities to improve patient treatment and provide assignment help to other students in the field of nursing.
Administer medications and treatments
A nurse is also responsible for administering medication and recording the patient’s response. This is considered as being a very important role as the medication a patient is given has a direct effect on their health. Wrong administration of medication can result in patient death thus a nurse must ensure the correct medication is being administered. In addition to administering the medication, nurses are also responsible for ensuring the patient is consuming the medication and must also observe the patients reaction to the medication. Medicinal reactions are common among patients and require to be detected as soon as possible to prevent medical conditions escalating out of control.
Operate medical equipment
As mentioned earlier, nurses are responsible for receiving patients admitted to the medical facility both in and outpatients as well as those being admitted at the emergency wards. Nurses require performing the initial assessment and determining the urgency of treatment thus making it important for them to operate healthcare equipment. Operating medical equipment is critical for a nurse to know as this allows them to perform urgent tests on a patient to determine their vitals before doctors arrive to treat the patient. As discussed earlier the nurse should be able to request extras of a patient with fractured bones thus allowing the extra images to be produced before a doctor attends the patient. This also allows the nurse to begin providing first aid to the patient.
Provide support, advise and educate patients on illnesses
Nurses are also responsible for providing patients and their families and guardians with support, advice, information and guidance relating to the patients’ health condition and treatment options. This is important as many patients are diagnosed with health issues late and may require specialized attention, care and treatment. Many patients may be facing serious psychological, stress and anxiety-related issues after being diagnosed with a medical condition thus making it critical for the nurse to offer assistance to the patients, ensuring they get the best care and treatment.
