Accountability

A Code for Nursing Students

1. Advocate for the rights of all clients. 2. Maintain client confidentiality. 3. Take appropriate action to ensure the safety of clients, self, and others. 4. Provide care for the client in a timely, compassionate and professional manner. 5. Communicate client care in a truthful, timely and accurate manner. 6. Actively promote the highest level of moral and ethical principles and accept responsibility for our actions. 7. Promote excellence in nursing by encouraging lifelong learning and professional development. 8. Treat others with respect and promote an environment that respects human rights, values, and choice of cultural and spiritual beliefs. 9. Collaborate in every reasonable manner with the academic faculty and clinical staff to ensure the highest quality of client care. 10. Use every opportunity to improve faculty and clinical staff understanding of the learning needs of nursing students. 11. Encourage faculty, clinical staff, and peers to mentor nursing students. 12. Refrain from performing any technique or procedure for which the student has not been adequately trained. 13. Refrain from any deliberate action or omission of care in the academic or clinical setting that creates unnecessary risk of injury to the client, self, or others. 14. Assist the staff nurse or preceptor in ensuring that there is full disclosure and that proper authorization is obtained from clients regarding any form of treatment or research. 15. Abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages or any substances in the academic and clinical setting that impair judgment. 16. Strive to achieve and maintain an optimal level of personal health. 17. Support access to treatment and rehabilitation for students who are experiencing impairments related to substance abuse and mental or physical health issues. 18. Uphold school policies and regulations related to academic and clinical performance, reserving the right to challenge and critique rules and regulations as per school grievance policy.

Factors Influencing Nursing Practice and Accountability: Science and Technology

Advances in science and technology greatly affect nursing practice, competence, and accountability Nurses need to expand their knowledge base and technical skills as they adapt to meet new patient needs emerging out of the expanded use of technology.

Code of Ethics

Another important part of the nursing tradition is respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people. To preserve this value, professionals in the nursing field must do what is considered right, even if doing so means they incur a personal cost. To promote accountability in the use of ethical behaviors, the nursing profession has developed its own codes of ethics specific to the aims of nursing and the problems that nurses typically face

Special Education in Nursing

Associate's, bachelor's, master's, or doctorate degree in nursing and subsequently passes the National Council Licensure Examination, or NCLEX.

Concepts Related to Accountability

Comfort Evidence Based Practice Health, Wellness, Illness, and Injury Safety Teaching and Learning Trauma

Socialization to Nursing

It has consequences for the nurse by instilling critical values and providing opportunities for interactions that support and promote accountability.

Factors Contributing to the Nursing Shortage

Nursing School Enrollment Not Growing Fast Enough Aging Nurse Workforce Shortage of Nursing Faculty Changing Demographics Increased Demand for Nurses Workplace Issues

Body of Knowledge

Nursing has a well-defined body of knowledge and expertise that is always expanding. This knowledge base is the product of various conceptual nursing frameworks that direct practice, education, and ongoing research

Autonomy in Nursing

Professional autonomy involves legal authority; a professional group is autonomous only if it possesses the legal authority to define its goals and responsibilities in how it delivers its services, describe its particular functions and roles, and determine its scope of practice. Autonomy for nurses on an individual level means professional responsibility, accountability for their actions, and the freedom to do their jobs as necessary while at work.

Service Orientation

That nursing, unlike some occupations, is not primarily driven by considerations of profit. Nursing emphasizes service to others as a matter of tradition and as a basis for accountability.

Standards of Care and Practice are established by:

The Joint Commission, the American Nurses Association (ANA), and the National League for Nursing (NLN).

Factors Influencing Nursing Practice and Accountability:Legislation

The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA), for example, requires that all competent adults be informed in writing upon admission to a healthcare institution about their rights to accept or refuse medical care and to use advance directives. In this way, legislative and other regulatory changes can directly affect the nurse's role in supporting patients and their families.

Accountability

The ability and willingness of an individual to assume responsibility for his or her actions and to accept the consequences of his or her behavior.

Factors Influencing Nursing Practice and Accountability:Consumer Demand

The drive for integrative healthcare services is motivated by more than the need to consolidate and lower the costs of healthcare; it is also motivated by consumer interest in the use of complementary health approaches. Another factor affecting consumer use of the healthcare system is that today's healthcare consumers are more knowledgeable and vocal about their needs, in part due to the increasing amount of information available on the internet.

Factors Influencing Nursing Practice and Accountability: Economics

The healthcare industry has been shifting its emphasis from inpatient to outpatient care with pre-admission testing, increased outpatient same-day surgery, post hospitalization rehabilitation, home healthcare, health maintenance, physical fitness programs, and community health education programs. More nurses are being employed in community-based health settings, such as home health agencies, hospices, and community clinics. These changes affect nursing education, nursing research, and nursing practice, particularly with regard to the nurse's competence to practice within these settings.

Professional Organization

This organizational structure provides governance, which establishes and maintains social, political, and economic arrangements that give professionals the means to control their professional affairs, including their practice, self-discipline, and working conditions.

Factors Influencing Nursing Practice and Accountability: Information Availability and Telecommunications

With easy access to the internet at home and on mobile devices, ever-greater numbers of patients and caregivers are searching the web for answers to their health questions. Today, videoconferencing, telepractice, telerehabilitation, and virtual visits all allow individuals and/or groups in two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions. Education has also been enhanced by web-based distance learning.

professional socialization four critical attributes

learning, interaction, development, and adaptation.

The six competencies critical to the nursing role

patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics.

The Current Nursing Shortage Recommended Actions

• Giving nursing students the means to enter and progress through educational programs more rapidly and efficiently • Stepping up efforts to recruit young people early in the course of their education (e.g., in middle and high school) • Providing greater scheduling flexibility, better rewards for experienced nurses who serve as mentors, more adequate staffing, and increased salaries to improve nurses' work environment • Increasing funding for nursing education

Aspects of the profession that promote accountability include:

• The requirement to successfully complete exhaustive, specialized training to acquire the body of knowledge necessary for performance of the role; • The direction of the professional individual toward service, whether in a community or an organizational capacity; • Allegiance to a code of ethics; • The autonomy of the role; and • Membership in a professional organization.