Saturday, March 30, 2013

Outcome 2

Integrate reliable evidence from multiple perspectives to inform practice and make reasonable clinical judgments.  

Integrating reliable evidence from multiple perspectives and using that to guide practice and make reasonable judgments can sometimes be difficult. I have found that in my practice, before I go to see a patient I will read the transcribed history on the computer, the history submitted by the patient, and progress notes. This allows me to not only go into the patient room with a better understanding of why they are here, but what everyone did while working with them.

If I come across a particular illness, medication, or procedure that I am not familiar with I will research it so I can be familiar with it. I have not always done this and found myself guessing or making assumptions about patient care. Once I learned to prioritize my time so that I could use different people’s perspectives and research in my practice, I found my patients were happier, I was more confident and my peers started to look to me for advice and help.

While I cannot pinpoint one specific course that has helped me with this particular situation, I can say that nursing research, and leadership helped me to hone my research skills and become a better leader/teacher for my peers and also for my patients.

Clinical judgment isn’t something that everyone has, but I do believe that it can be learned and that it can be honed if you work at it. By making time to research, read histories, review progress notes from the dietitians/physical therapists/ and other members of the interdisciplinary team, and talk to the patient about their concerns, clinical judgments will be more accurate and patients will be better cared for.

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