Advocacy in Long Term Care Nursing Practice
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Advocacy in Long Term Care Nursing Practice
Introduction
Advocacy in nursing is an important role that every nurse is expected to play while in practice. Nursing advocacy sometimes happens automatically even when the nurses are not aware of it. Advocacy in nursing is important because it helps protect patients’ rights, keep patients safe, and improve communities (NIH, 2017). Long-term care nursing facilities are some of the places where nursing advocacy happens actively. Advocacy in long-term care has myriads of benefits to the patients. Nursing advocacy typically involves nurses helping their patients to protect their rights and help them understand their medical conditions and treatments (NIH, 2017). In that regard, the purpose of this paper is to discuss examples of advocacy in long-term care nursing practice.
The two examples of advocacy in long-term care nursing practice include suggesting relevant resources to patients and suggesting and lobbying for better policies that have positive impacts on the patients (NIH, 2017). To begin with, suggesting relevant resources to patients is an important form of advocacy because it improves patients’ health, rights, and safety alongside other several benefits. Nurses in long-term care facilities often provide their patients with resources that can help achieve their treatment goals (NIH, 2017). Some of these resources further patients’ treatment even after they have left the medical facility.
In cases where a patient receives complex or unclear instructions regarding their treatment plan, for instance, nurses should always show them helpful resources online that could aid their understanding (NIH, 2017). The nurse might also show the patient know about local or virtual support groups related to their medical condition. Patients usually need financial or social assistance related to their medical conditions. Nurses should help patients access these services by providing substantial information or instructions (Potter et al., 2020). For example, if a patient is concerned about the cost of medications, the nurse may provide the patient with information regarding a financial assistance program provided through the pharmaceutical medical condition.
Suggesting and lobbying for good legal choices or policy changes is another example of advocacy in long-term care nursing practice. Nurses should always help patients receive the fairest legal options (Potter et al., 2020). For instance, if the care provider feels that the patient could have better payment choices, the nurse may communicate with the billing department. Nurses can create organizational policies that ensure favorable billing of patients. Some nurses in long-term care facilities advocate for healthcare policy changes within the national or local governments. Improving the quality of life for residents of long-term care facilities needs a basic understanding of the overall long-term care system in the United States. Nurses in long-term care organizations can advocate by developing new approaches to delivering long-term care services in residential settings (Potter et al., 2020). For instance, nurses can advocate for increasingly, a broad range of housing alternatives provide some level of supportive services to older residents.
Conclusion
Advocacy should be part and parcel of nursing. Nurses should be patient advocates to ensure quality care delivery. Long-term care organizations are some of the most known places where nursing advocacy happens. Advocacy in long-term care has several benefits to the patients. The two examples of advocacy in long-term care nursing practice include suggesting relevant resources to patients and suggesting and lobbying for better policies that have positive impacts on the patients.
References
NIH. (2017). What Is Long-Term Care? https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-long-term-care
Potter, P. A., Perry, A. G., Stockert, P., & Hall, A. (2020). Fundamentals of Nursing. Elsevier.