Standards of Nursing Practice and Their Application to a Case Study

This paper discusses the standards of nursing practice and how they are applied to a case study. It explores the different standards and their significance in providing quality nursing care. The case study of Frank Skinner is used as an example to illustrate the application of these standards.

Nursing
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Introduction
The fundamental objective of the paper is to discuss the standards of nursing practice and how it
is applied to the nurses. The standards of nursing practice are considered to be the legal aspect of
nursing that puts a great impact on how the care is provided to the clients by nurses. Based on
such standards, it is the primary responsibility of the nurses to shape, regulate, direct, and
promote professional practice. Moreover, the paper will select one specific standard and will
discuss how it applies to the case study of Frank Skinner.
Discussion of the standard of nursing practice and how it is applied to nursing
The standards of nursing practice have been established by the American Nurses Association
(ANA) facilitates guidelines for nursing performance. They are determined to be the rules to
serve competent care to the patients. The law enforces registered professional nurses to carry out
a care in different situations. The primary objective of having standards is to regulate, direct,
guide, and promote professional nursing practice (International Council of Nursing. 2012). The
standards set out by the professional and legal needs for nursing practice demonstrates the level
of performance for nurses. The standards guide the professional judgment, skills, and knowledge
required to practice nursing safely. Ensuring the standards of practice for registered nurses is
considered to be a shared responsibility among employers, nurse practitioners, and nurses. The
different standards of nursing practice are Accountability and Responsibility, Knowledge-based
practice, Client-centered Relationships, Leadership, and Professional Relationships., Individual
self-regulation, comprehensively conducts assessment and maintains the capability of practice.
All these standards are applied to all nurses, involving researchers, policy, educators, managers,
or administrators. Accountability and Responsibility are important for the registered nurses as
they are entirely responsible to practice ethically, compassionately, competently, and safely.
These nurses are also accountable to public, profession, employer, and clients. They are applied
to nurses in order to accept responsibility and being accountable for their evaluations, decisions,
inactions, and actions based on their practice. Whereas, Knowledge-based practice is important
for evidence-informed knowledge, which is appropriate to their individual and legislated scope
of practice to facilitate client-centered nursing services and care approach (Nurses and
Midwifery Board of Australia [NMBA]. 2017). It is applied to the nurses to undertake a critical
inquiry to evaluate, monitor, intervene, plan, and assess related services and client care.

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Moreover, Client-centered Relationships is important for registered nurses to create therapeutic
and professional relationships through a client-centered approach. It is applied to the nurses to
establish and maintain relationships with the patients, along with their families. Furthermore,
Leadership and Professional Relationships are significant to build professional relationships with
the team of health care members and establish leadership to provide health care services and
quality nursing. This particular standard is applied to the nurses to implement strategies to
improve the health condition of a client. While Individual self-regulation is also important for the
nurses to be accountable to regulate themselves based on their individual and legislated scope of
practice, it is applied to the nurses to upholds legal and ethical responsibilities based on
maintaining the confidentiality of the clients in every form of communications (Nurses and
Midwifery Board of Australia [NMBA]. 2015).
Moreover, it can be seen that another standard that is comprehensively conducts assessment is
significant for the registered nurses to conduct systematic and comprehensive assessments
adequately. This standard is applied to the nurses to help them to communicate outcome and
evaluate the data and information in the form of practice. Meanwhile, the standard such as
maintains the capability of practice is important as the registered nurses are accountable and
responsible for ensuring that they possess the capability for practice and are safe. It involves,
responding, and ongoing self-management when it determines the capability for practice for the
health professionals (Halcomb, Stephens, Bryce, Foley & Ashley, 2016). It is applied to the
nurses as they contribute to the development of others and also responsible for their professional
development. The registered nurses are also responsible for facilitating education and
information to allow people to take actions and make decisions related to their health.
Explanation of how the sub-standard practice applies to Frank Skinner
In the case of Frank Skinner, who is a 58-year-old Aboriginal man, was brought to the
Emergency Department by his wife Mary as he was feeling unsteady and complained of his
headache. Looking at his condition, the nurses decided to conduct a triage process by asking
several questions regarding his health condition (Decker et al., 2015). On the other hand, Frank
was provided with a wheelchair as the nurse observed that he was leaning towards his right side
that resulted in facial droop, difficulty in speaking, and arm weakness. According to the nurses,
the reason behind this condition is due to thrombolysis. However, the standards of nursing

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practice that applies to Frank Skinner case study is comprehensively conducts an assessment
(Harper & Maloney, 2016). This particular standard includes four sub-standards. The first sub-
standard helps the nurses to conduct assessments that are culturally as well as holistically
relevant. Therefore, the nurses used this standard to monitor the health condition of Frank and
conduct a triage process to understand the difficulties faced by him. However, according to this
standard to treat and provide care to Frank, the significant role of the nurse is to analyze the
condition of the client. This standard applies to Frank’s case study as the nurse carried out legal
and ethical responsibilities based on maintaining the confidentiality of Frank as well as
optimizing the central role of Frank in providing quality care to him (Lioce et al., 2015).
Moreover, the second sub-standard states the utilization of a huge range of techniques to conduct
an assessment to collect accurate and appropriate information and data systematically to inform
practice. This standard is applied by the nurse by maintaining a professional relationship with
Frank to treat him with care (Rutherford-Hemming, Lioce & Durham, 2015). Thus, the nurses
maintained relevant boundaries within therapeutic and professional relationships with Frank and
implemented suitable boundaries when the boundaries are not sustained. Moreover, based on the
sub-standard of this comprehensively conducts an assessment, the nurse used various relevant
techniques to treat Frank. However, the nurse decided to focus upon the treatment for his acute
ischemic stroke and transfer him to the High Dependency Unit (HDU). It also allowed the nurses
to practice nursing care both collaboratively and independently as a member of a healthcare team
while respecting and understanding the scope of contributions and practice of other team
members.
As per the third sub-standard, the nurse’s works in partnership to consider the factors that
potentially affect the wellbeing and health condition of populations and people to consider
priorities for referral and action. Based on this standard, the nurses also provided Frank and his
family with appropriate information regarding his health condition (de Vries & Timmins, 2016).
Depending upon the health condition of the client-nurse took appropriate actions. It has been
observed that Frank was having a history of high cholesterol and hypertension, which is the main
reason behind his critical condition (Kane, 2015). By following the aspects of this standard, the
nurses communicated respectfully and efficiently with Frank to provide him with ethical,
compassionate, competent as well as safe care. The standard helped the nurses to take relevant

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actions to make sure that their emotional, psychological, and physical health does not negatively
affect their capability to serve care to Frank. Therefore, by implementing different approaches,
the nurses were making tremendous efforts to provide quality care to Frank Skinner.
On the other hand, the forth sub-standard states the fact that the nurses use the available
resources to inform planning. As a result, the nurse took ECG of Frank and decided to take him
to the radiology to organize a CT brain scan (Rogers & Wattis, 2015). The nurse applies this
particular standard by supporting Frank by the health system and upholding and concerning the
right of Frank to make an informed decision regarding his treatment. Therefore, the nurses take
all possible steps to mitigate the issues that raise from professional practice. Thus, the nurse
gives priority to the family of Frank and works professionally to get a better outcome.
Furthermore, the nurses also monitored as well as examined Frank to understand the difficulty
faced by him. Based on this standard, the nurses always tries to promote quality practice
environments that enhance evidence-informed practice and learning (Sittner et al., 2015). It
helped the nurses to implement adequate actions to mitigate the issues related to the health
condition of Frank.
Conclusion
The paper demonstrated an understanding of the standard of nursing practice that is essential to
guide and promote the clinical practice. It revealed the fact that nursing standards are effectively
utilized to serve a framework for proficiency evaluations and to develop a clinical competency. It
discussed different standards of nursing practices that are applied by the nurses in order to treat
the patients with care. It has been observed that the nursing practice helps in enhancing the
knowledge base through guidelines, education, and experience. Moreover, it can be seen that the
comprehensively conducts assessment standard has been applied to the case study of Frank
Skinner appropriately.

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