Each medical organization should have a patient care policy. One of the main principles of patient-oriented care is advocacy. The patients’ advocacy in healthcare is correlated with protecting their rights, ensuring the safety of the patients providing them with the opportunity to participate in the treatment plan. Basically, there are different types of advocacy and their providers. However, nurses are often responsible for providing most of the kinds of advocacy for patients.
Patient advocacy is one of the most vital for any medical organization’s direction, which should be constantly developed. Advocacy today has become highly relevant because of the growing tendency to improve treatment outcomes through doctor-patient collaboration (Jewell & Kalaitzidis, 2020). The nurse is the person who serves as a mediator between the clinicians and patients (Abbasinia et al., 2010). Nurses can provide relevant and adequate advocacy considering the situation from different perspectives by closely connecting with the treatment insights and patient concerns.
Based on my experience, I can say that nursing advocacy is an essential factor in successful treatment. Working at the clinic, I faced the example of sufficient patient advocacy. The juvenile patient should have been operated on as prescribed by the doctor. However, the religious beliefs of the patient’s family did not allow such an invasion of the human body. As a result, they rejected any operations and wanted to take the son home. However, the young patient, understanding the necessity of the operation, asked the nurse to pursue his family to allow the surgery. The nurse showed great communicative work and discussed with the family the consequences of their decision. As a result, the surgery was held, and the patient was saved. The lack of nursing advocacy, in this case, might have led to adverse health impacts for the patient and even to his abrupt death. Thus, the patient advocacy performed by the nurse is an essential procedure that ensures the patient’s safety.
References
Abbasinia, M., Ahmadi, F., & Kazemnejad, A. (2020). Patient advocacy in nursing: A concept analysis. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 141–151. Web.
Kalaitzidis, E., & Jewell, P. (2019). The concept of advocacy in nursing a critical analysis. The Health Care Manager, 39(2), 77–84. Web.