Nursing Accountability: The Key to Quality Patient Care

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Out of all of the members of the health care interdisciplinary team, nurses are the ones who spend the most time giving care to the patient. In order to give the greatest quality of care to a patient, it is important for nurses to “assume accountability and responsibility in fulfilling the role of the associate degree nurse, through personal and professional growth, integration of current evidence-based practice and understanding of multiple dimensions of patient-centered care” (Ivy Tech Community College, 2016). One of the most important parts of this is the nurse’s ability to take responsibility in patient care. Battié and Steelman (2014) notes that patients expect the best care from nurses, so it is only fair that nurses also expect themselves responsible for delivering the best care. Battié and Steelman (2014) also says that accountability relies on two parts: clinical expertise and effective communication. Nursing expertise can only be gained through personal growth that comes from practice or learning over time, while effective communication has been built into nursing through …show more content…

Evidence-based practices give reasons behind different aspects of patient care, and without them, the patient is possibly not receiving the best quality of care possible. It is the nurse’s own job to research these in order to witness the solid evidence reinforcing evidence-based care, and this could also increase the nurse’s compliance in performing the evidence-based care when they see it for themselves. White and Spruce (2015) give an example of evidence-based practice and perioperative nurses at one hospital, noting that the use of hand hygiene before patient care resulted in fewer infections. This is an example of a nurse’s responsibility that is back with evidence. The nurse should accountable for all his or her actions, though, whether backed by evidence or

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