Summary

Although nursing practices have existed in human communities for thousands of years, it was not until Florence Nightingale’s efforts during the Crimean War, in the mid-1800s, that nursing progressed into a professional discipline. Nightingale emphasized the importance of hygiene, nutrition, and evidence-based practice, and she later opened the first school of nursing.

Current nursing trends include integrating the latest healthcare technologies into education, emphasizing diversity and inclusion, and improving staffing ratios and working conditions for nurses. Future trends for nursing professionals include an emphasis on nursing self-care, the expansion of nursing roles in telehealth, and nursing advocacy.

Patient-centered care is a fundamental concept in nursing that places the patient at the forefront of healthcare delivery. It recognizes the importance of understanding and respecting the unique needs, preferences, values, and beliefs of each individual patient. Patient-centered care ultimately recognizes patient autonomy, or the concept that patients have the right to make decisions about their own health care. Patient-centered care has many benefits, including improved communication, increased trust between the patient and healthcare team, personalized care plans, and better outcomes. Additional benefits include enhanced overall patient experience, leading to higher levels of satisfaction; improved job satisfaction of healthcare providers, including nurses; and long-term cost savings.

Transparent communication is a necessary part of patient-centered care and ensures that patients have the necessary information to make autonomous decisions about their care. This approach ensures that patients are fully informed and actively involved in decisions about their health care, fostering transparency in the decision-making process. By empowering patients with knowledge, nurses can ensure that they actively participate in decision-making and have a clear understanding of their healthcare journey.

As a professional discipline, nursing adheres to a set of standards, developed by the ANA, called the Standards for Professional Nursing Practice. These standards guide and govern nursing practice and professionalism. The ANA’s Standards for Professional Nursing Practice are also the framework for delivering quality care, ensuring that nurses are equipped with the knowledge and tools to make a positive impact on patients’ lives (ANA, 2021).

The ANA standards are divided into two main parts: the first six, which ANA calls Standards of Practice, are concerned with the nursing process; the Standards of Practice ensure that nurses provide safe, competent, and ethical care to their patients; the Standards of Professional Performance ensure that nurses maintain competent behavior in their professional role. The ANA has also created a Scope of Nursing Practice to define the boundaries, responsibilities, and expectations of nursing professionals in their respective roles. These include delegation, a crucial nursing responsibility. The five rights of nursing delegation were developed to serve as a framework for delegation; they are right task, right circumstance, right person, right communication, and right supervision.

The collaborative approach to patient care in nursing emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary teamwork and effective communication among healthcare professionals to provide holistic, patient-centered care. This approach recognizes that multiple healthcare disciplines contribute unique perspectives and expertise to address the complex needs of patients. The fundamentals of collaborative care include organized communication, effective data sharing, simplified referrals, and integrated scheduling. Collaborative care has many benefits including improved quality of care, reduced cost of care, and increased convenience of care.