Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

Please note that the approved subject is Covid 19 has infested a facility in California called Kings tong Healthcare. We have been educating the staff on stopping the spread , Vaccines, dealing with Covid vaccine side effects.

Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

There is a lot that has been going on at Kingston Healthcare in California since the time that the Covid-19 infections numbers began to surge last year. Infections among staff had been rising just as it was also doing among the patients that were being seen at the facility. The management decided to test staff every week to ensure that even the asymptomatic but infected staff did not infect the others. Education on the proper use of PPEs was also offered and staff vaccinated as a priority. These efforts have been yielding results albeit slowly. So far the change project has gone on well with only the usual logistical hiccups being experienced. This paper recaps on the weekly reflection on the lessons learnt and experiences lived with regard to the practicum journey. The reflection is guided by the 11 topic areas pertinent to the practicum experience.Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

The Reflection

On new practice approaches, we have had to adjust to the scale of the pandemic by adapting almost all facets of practice to the new realities. The most notable new practice approach has been the use of PPEs when attending to any patient who presents at the Kingston Healthcare facility as a rule (policy). Interprofessional collaboration has been the mainstay of coping with the demands placed on staffing, communications, and practice by the Covid-19 pandemic. Because Covid-19 is practically a new disease to the world, it became necessary to liaise with other professional colleagues in order to move together by sharing the evidence as it emerges on how to effectively manage and prevent Covid-19 infections. I have seen how health care delivery and clinical systems have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the large numbers of patient suffering from the same disease that is also infectious, healthcare delivery and clinical systems have had to e adjusted accordingly. For instance, the dashboard of the electronic health record (EHR) system at Kingston Healthcare in California had to be adjusted to include quality and performance metrics related to Covid-19 (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). As can be expected, all manner of patients have been presenting with Covid-19 symptoms at the Kingston facility. I have seen and also practiced ethical considerations in health care with all of these patients. For instance, every patient has been treated with dignity upon arrival and an explanation given why they were being attended to by a nurse in complete protective gear. This is to reassure them that we are not stigmatizing them but that we are fighting the spread of the disease. None of the patient has also been treated differently because of their religion, skin color, or ethnicity. All these actions respect autonomy and justice as bioethical principles (Haswell, 2019). Beneficence and nonmaleficence have also been observed by giving patients the best quality care and avoiding interventions that have no proven efficacy and hence dangerous to the patient.

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              Practices of culturally sensitive care have been routine at Kingston Healthcare. Patients from diverse cultures have been treated with the same respect and their beliefs have not been frowned upon. For instance, the African American patients who have been coming and saying that the vaccines are not effective and that they are being used as guinea pigs have been listened to. They have then been told their reservations are justified given what historically happened to Henrietta Lacks and other Backs. But they have been reassured that the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are safe for everybody (Paxton, 2020). This is closely tied to ensuring the integrity of human dignity in the care of all patients. As a rule, all patients at Kingston Healthcare have been treated in a dignified manner devoid of bigotry and discrimination. For instance, there has been no case of discrimination as to who gets the Covid-19 vaccine. Population health concerns have been on reducing the community spread of the virus through concerted health education and promotion to all patients seen. Patients are continually advised at Kingston Healthcare to continue wearing masks even after vaccination, to keep social distance, and to regularly wash hands with soap and water. Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal  The role of technology in improving health care outcomes has also been evident. The fact that the EHR system could be adjusted to reflect the new realty of Covid-19 and capture data related to it is proof that technology improves the patient outcomes (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Health policy has been adhered to as dictated both from the state and the federal government. For instance, the policy of getting shots in arms without discrimination put forward by the new Biden administration.  But all this cannot happen without leadership. At Kingston Healthcare, leadership and economic models that are sustainable have been areas in which the facility has excelled. For instance, all nurse the nurse leaders at Kingston are transformational leaders (Choi et al., 2019). Finally, the systemic problem of health disparities has also been seen at the Kingston Healthcare facility. That marginalized communities such as Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately disadvantaged with regard to access to quality health care is not a fallacy. At the facility, all has been done to right this situation by practicing affirmative action with members of these communities.

References

Alotaibi, Y., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi Medical Journal, 38(12), 1173–1180. https://doi.org/10.15537/smj.2017.12.20631

Choi, S.L., Goh, C.F., Adam, M.B.H., & Tan, O.K. (2016). Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment. Human Resources for Health, 14(1), 73. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2

Haswell, N. (2019). The four ethical principles and their application in aesthetic practice. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 8(4), 177-179. https://doi.org/10.12968/joan.2019.8.4.177

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K.G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge, 4th ed. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Paxton, A. (2020). The Belmont Report in the age of big data: Ethics at the intersection of psychological science and data science. In S. E. Woo, L. Tay, & R. W. Proctor (Eds.), Big data in psychological research (p. 347–372). American Psychological Association (APA). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000193-016

Students are required to submit weekly reflective narratives throughout the course that will culminate in a final, course-long reflective journal due in Topic 10. The narratives help students integrate leadership and inquiry into current practice.

This reflection journal also allows students to outline what they have discovered about their professional practice, personal strengths and weaknesses, and additional resources that could be introduced in a given situation to influence optimal outcomes. Each week students should also explain how they met a course competency or course objective(s).

In each week’s entry, students should reflect on the personal knowledge and skills gained throughout the course. Journal entries should address one or more of the areas stated below.  In the Topic 10 graded submission, each of the areas below should be addressed as part of the summary submission.Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

1. New practice approaches
2. Interprofessional collaboration
3. Health care delivery and clinical systems
4. Ethical considerations in health care
5. Practices of culturally sensitive care
6. Ensuring the integrity of human dignity in the care of all patients
7. Population health concerns
8. The role of technology in improving health care outcomes
9. Health policy
10. Leadership and economic models
11. Health disparities

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are not required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite.

Week 8 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal