DQ: Discuss the importance of advocacy as it pertains to patient care

Advocating starts with nursing process. The needs of the patients are communicated to different interdisciplinary teams by the nurse. Nurses help patients make informed decisions regarding their health and well-being. Advocacy in nursing is important as it helps reduce the chances of errors and harm to patients. Nurses should speak on behalf of their patients and work jointly with the healthcare team if any problem occurs. We have to give patients a chance to voice their concerns and to keep them informed about treatment and procedures. Relationship between nurses and patients can influence patient outcomes. Nurse advocate in healthcare system by improved interpersonal skills, improved provisional skills, and improved communication skills. For example, a patient asked me to pass the message to the provider that she needs physiotherapy.

DQ: Discuss the importance of advocacy as it pertains to patient care

Nurse advocates easier communication with all members of the healthcare team regarding the patients’ care. Nurses can advocate better treatment, legal options and payment solutions. Nurses can speak on behalf of patients who are afraid or less courageous to ask questions. A nurse should have excellent communication, organizational skills, good time management and the ability to solve difficult problems. Nurse help to communicate with providers to get the information required to make decisions about their healthcare. These include appointment for doctor visits, medical tests, and to get social support. The patient’s views and wishes are also considered while taking decisions on treatment. Advocating with patients who is having an altered mental status in medical surgical unit is very challenging.

Recently, I came across with a case in medical surgical unit where a patient was admitted for some investigation and procedures. During skin swarm, a nurse found that he is having a small wound in between buttocks that is tunneling inside. Later, incision drainage was performed and antibiotic treatment was started. In the doctor’s note, it was mentioned that this wound was found by the nurse during her initial assessment. If this was not found and reported by nurse, the wound could have become worse.

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Patient advocacy can take on many different shapes in healthcare. However, verbal or nonverbal communication is the first step in

advocation (Helbig, 2018, ch 5). Nurses play a significant role in encouraging patients’ autonomy in their care and speaking up when it’s not followed. When nurses advocate for patients, care delivery can achieve safe, high quality, and equitable patient-centered care.

Healthcare can be very intimidating and confusing for the general population. The technology, terminology, and the institutional environment can be overwhelming. Nurses are the navigators of patient-centered care. Advocating starts with the nursing process, then the needs of patients are communicated by the nurse across the different interdisciplinary teams (Helbig, 2018, ch 5).

Advocating in pediatrics is one of the most challenging, intricate, and delicate duties I have undertaken. You are caring for someone who has not learned to speak for themself; caring is seen as both the patient and parents, making ethical and moral situations harder to come to terms with.

I recently advocated for a patient who needed further testing due to medical reasons, and her behavior resulted from her diagnosis. She was not neurologically appropriate, and it wasn’t because she was three and having a tantrum. The situation was multifaceted with nurse-doctor communication and household communication between mom and dad. The young girl came in with PICA, Hbg, and Hct in the single digits. She was a picky eater, only drinking milk and eating mac and cheese. Mom found her eating paper and toilet paper. The mom gave her a little Benadryl for a cold, and hours later, she started acting peculiar. The mom brought her into the ED. She was staring off to the right and screaming when people approached her. People assumed it was stranger danger. After discussion with mom, we found out that she drank up to 8 bottles of milk a day, and the girl was severely anemic. I want to say she had a Hct of 8.

The doctors asked the basic questions and moved on with the slow blood transfusion. I could tell the mom was very distressed, so I thought I would try and talk to her like another mom and not a healthcare person. This was when I learned more about the child’s character. The mom seemed to second guess everything she said; she explained that her husband never agreed with her, and ultimately, the kids do what they want because dad makes it that way. This was personally hard for me, but I did my best to encourage her to believe in her inner mom voice.

Moving on to the doctors. I kept pushing that we needed to do scans of the brain because she was far from her baseline. I pushed my assessment onto the NP in hopes she could be a bridge to my voice. She started to pull up studies relating to pica, anemia, and severely low hct levels. It led to evidence that could support micro-emboli resulting from slug-like blood. We presented the findings and the assessment to the doctors, and we got our head CT. The scan showed multiple scattered venous and arterial emboli. She was immediately started on heparin. Consequently, the heparin broke up a large clot in her heart, and then she threw a ton of micro pulmonary emboli.

In the end, she turned out fine and recovered. I was graced with a thank you card from mom. She was grateful for the inspiring words and strength to believe in herself as a mom.

Abbasinia, M., Ahmadi, F., & Kazemnejad, A. (2020). Patient advocacy in nursing: A concept analysis. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 141–151

Bu, X., & Jezewski, M. A. (2007). Developing a mid-range theory of patient advocacy through concept analysis. Journal of advanced nursing, 57(1), 101–110

Grand Canyon University (Ed). (2018). Dynamics in nursing: Art & science of professional practice. Chapter 5. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs430v/dynamics-in-nursing-art-and-science-of-professional-practice/v1.1/

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