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Chapter 3 |
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Nursing Leadership and Management in Action |
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Nursing care is delivered amidst a number of different structural designs in health care. Each design has its own strengths and weaknesses. In functional nursing, different health care givers are assigned tasks according to their skills and licensure. In team/modular nursing, groups of health care providers are assigned to a group of patients. The case or total patient care method makes one nurse completely responsible for all aspects of nursing care required by one or more patients. In primary nursing, one nurse coordinates all aspects of a patient's care and develops a plan for others to follow. Practice partnerships between an RN and an assistant are designed to achieve the same outcomes of two RNs by selectively delegating less specialized tasks to the assistant under the direction of the RN. Differentiated practice also capitalizes on the different educational, experiential, and competence levels of health care providers by defining their roles and functions accordingly. Patient-centered care is a unit-based system of delivery in which nurses coordinate patient care and unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) help with delegated patient care tasks, perform environmental services, or provide administrative support. In this system, care is decentralized, and UAPs are given more responsibility. Case management is a method of coordinating and monitoring patient services to achieve desired outcomes, within a specific time frame, that are usually defined in critical pathways.
Instructions
You have been hired as the new nurse manager for a pediatric rehabilitation unit in a long-term care facility. Select the nursing care delivery system you would prefer to implement.
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