Compassion is a common trait among health professionals, and compassionate care ensures that patients feel respected and well-cared for during their stay and can even speed up recovery.
However, compassion is often misunderstood in the medical world. Compassion is more than being kind to patients or checking in regularly with folks with acute illnesses. Genuine compassion requires forward-thinking and careful planning.
Nurses who want to improve the quality of their compassionate patient care should take advantage of on-the-job training opportunities to bolster their knowledge and enhance the quality of their service. Further training can help nurses adapt to new technology, which innately reduces workload and increases the time healthcare professionals can spend with each patient.
Further Training
Nursing programs are rigorous enough to put many nurses off further education for life. However, pursuing specialized credentials and further education is an excellent way for healthcare professionals to improve patient care quality. Nurses who seek additional training often choose to specialize, which can increase their salary and improve their job satisfaction.
Some nurses may be too busy to pursue further training at this time. The current nursing shortage is expected to last through 2030, meaning many healthcare professionals work above and beyond their job descriptions.
However, busy nurses can still pursue specialized credentials by enrolling in on-the-job training programs in healthcare. On-the-job training (OTJ) increases job satisfaction and does not take nurses away from understaffed units. This means the hospital can train its staff quickly without paying salaried employees who are not presently working.
There are plenty of training programs designed to improve compassion and patient care. However, nurses today should consider anti-bias training. Recent studies show that many nurses are unaware of their implicit biases and may have difficulty empathizing with patients different from themselves. Training that elevates empathetic awareness can bring a more compassionate approach to nursing and improve the overall standard of patient care.
Technology
At first glance, technology and compassion seem like apples and oranges. However, nurses that utilize newly released automation technology can free up time to spend with patients and improve the overall quality of their care.
For example, nurses specializing in psychotherapy can improve patient care quality by embracing tech like therapy notes software. Therapy notes software help reduce nurses’ workloads and helps nurses keep track of patient progress. This change in the workflow can streamline nurses’ schedules and improve organization at work. This means nurses can spend more time focusing on the patients in front of them and less time inputting data into their electronic health record (EHR) systems.
However, before switching to new tech, healthcare providers should ensure that software is interoperable within their larger EHR environment. Interoperability is the ability to share information across multiple technologies and is integral to the successful adoption of new tech. Applications that seamlessly share data can help nurses stay organized and even automate communication between electronic medical records, specialty focus systems, and ancillary systems.
Staying Organized
Organization skills are often overlooked by folks looking to improve their compassion. However, it’s hard to embody compassion without caring for one’s responsibilities.
Kirsten Drake, DNP, RN, OCN, NEA-BC, believes that organization is a skill that can be polished with careful reflection and consideration. She suggests that nurses should list daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilities and “categorize critical activities” to gain greater clarity about what they need to do every day.
Categorizing activities into critical and non-critical tasks can help you focus on the bigger picture and make more time for patients. This is particularly important for nurses climbing the healthcare ladder and being looped into emails around the clock. Drake recommends funneling emails into “action needed, follow-up, or reference” to improve email management and organization.
Ultimately, an improved organization can help nurses alleviate their work stress and embrace a more holistic approach to care. This can help nurses who feel overwhelmed at work practice self-care without compromising patient care quality.
Self-Care
Nurses are certainly familiar with healthcare’s high emotional demands, including stress. High-stress levels can impact work performance by compromising one’s ability to make decisions or communicate effectively with other team members.
In addition, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that anxiety and stress reduce one’s ability to empathize with others. Recognizing the connection between stress and reduced compassion is critical for nurses who want to improve the quality of their patient care.
Nurses can mitigate stress and improve the quality of their care by seeking help to overcome chronic stress. This is particularly important today when many nurses feel overwhelmed at work. Even small interventions like talk therapy and prescribed mindfulness can be used to improve self-care and reduce fatigue.
Conclusion
Nursing is a highly demanding profession. Finding time to practice compassionate care can feel challenging when folks are overwhelmed at work and do not have enough time to attend to each patient. However, nurses can improve the quality of their patient care by embracing automation technology and seeking OTJ training. This can streamline their workday and free up time for more personalized, compassionate healthcare.
- Endurance for the Long Shift: How Physical Hobbies Boost Nursing Stamina - March 18, 2024
- Nurse Burnout and Technology: Finding the Balance - November 21, 2023
- How Retired Nurses Find Personal Growth Through Travel Nursing - October 5, 2023