Transition to Professional Nursing

This assignment reflects on two incidents that violated NSQHS standards and discusses the importance of abiding by these standards for better health outcomes. The first incident involves a senior nurse examining a wound without washing her hands, while the second incident involves a colleague administering the wrong dosage of medication. The reflection highlights the feelings, evaluation, and analysis of these incidents, linking them to the NSQHS standards. The conclusion includes an action plan for improving professional practice.

Transition to Professional Nursing
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Reflection about the incident based on standards............................................................................2
Description...................................................................................................................................2
Feelings........................................................................................................................................2
Evaluation....................................................................................................................................3
Analysis.......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion and action plan..........................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The current assignment works on reflecting my experience as a nurse and the ways it
violated the NSQHS standards of health. Here I plan to describe two incidents that worked on
clearing my understanding about the importance of abiding by NSQHS standards and the ways
professional outcome can be improved for better health.
Reflection about the incident based on standards
Description
During the course of my shift I noticed that the senior nurse examining wound of a
patient without washing her hands. As opined by Cruz and Bashtawi (2016), wound examination
is a critical scenario and must be accompanied with immense care. In similar regards I
additionally feel that the senior nurse atleast could have made the use of gloves while examining
the patient (Smiddy, O'Connell & Creedon, 2015). On similar incident I noticed my colleague
administering wrong dosage of morphine instead of insulin to an insulin resistant patient. The
first mistake done by the nurse in second scenario was that she did not check the contents of
medicine and proceeded to administer the dose of insulin, which was actually morphine
(Lorberbaum et al. 2015). I feel that was not right on her part. Fortunately, things did not
degrade; however, being a nurse one should not take chances
Feelings
I felt apprehensive about the thought of confronting her; being a senior nurse I did
understand that she knows better than me and that made me feel uncomfortable. I thought how
she could miss out the importance of washing hands before examining the wound. As stated by
Ritchie et al. (2018), nurses are often known to break the chain of infection in isolation by

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washing of hands. I could not come in terms with the fact that she missed out one vital step in
nursing care intervention. I shared this information with my supervising nurse and she
understood the fact that this incident was highly disturbing for me. She promised that she would
talk to the senior nurse and sort things out.
In second scenario, my colleague said that she did not check the medicine composition.
However, it becomes important to understand the fact checking of the medicine component is
often important, especially while injecting insulin during fasting blood glucose level (Liao et al
2015). Nevertheless, there remains no evidence in regards to the measurement of blood glucose
level and the medicine was already administered referring to the wrong administration of
medication. At first I was highly alarmed and requested the nurse to keep check on the condition
of the patient for negative outcomes. Luckily there was no negative outcome on health and we
both were relieved
Evaluation
My supervisor had a word with senior nurse about not washing the hands before
examining the patient. I was lucky that the nurse positively welcomed the feedback; she said she
almost forgot about it as she was really busy with the other patients. In addition to that it
becomes important to understand that in case washing of hands is not possible that wearing of
the gloves is an important intervention. However, she said she would keep this in mind (Levada
et al. 2015)
In case of second scenario, my young colleague said that she had no idea of the actual
dosage to be administered to a patient suffering from insulin resistance. She said she missed the
actual timing and wanted to make sure that the patient obtains the right dose of medication that

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can lead to positive health outcome. It is for the same reason that she administered the wrong
drug. In addition to that, it would be fir enough to state that nurse in this scenario, have limited
knowledge about medicine administration (Havers, Hall, Page & Wilson, 2016)
Analysis
Linking both the incidents to NSQHS standards, it can be clearly stated the first incident
violated the “Preventing and Controlling Healthcare-Associated Infection (standard 3)”
standard (Smiddy, O'Connell & Creedon, 2015). Leaders of the healthcare organization are often
seen to implement and monitor the control of healthcare associated infections. The intervention
is often linked with the fact nurses are the prime source of infection control care as they are the
first line of contact with the patients. Through the mentioned mode, the senior nurse could have
exhibited a better care plan and washed her hands to reduce the risk of hospital acquired
infections (Ritchie et al. 2018). Thus, it can be stated due to increase in work pressure or even
low patient to care giver ratio is often a cause that engenders non-adherence to the medical and
safety standards. The risk occurring in the mentioned scenario may be due to negligence or
unintentional. However, the potential results may not be termed as a suitable expected outcome
In alignment to the second incident, it can be stated the nurse violated the NSQHS
“Medication Safety Standard” (standard 4). The nurse went on to administer the wrong
dosage of medication without checking the contents of the medicine (Cruz & Bashtawi, 2016).
The standard demands to make sure that the drug provided to the patient is in compliance to the
health standards. The management of medicine is an important intervention to ensure that error is
avoided. Adherence to the mentioned standard often followed, as it provides sound governance
for quality use of medicine. In addition to that patient was not informed about the injection being

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administered (Lorberbaum et al.2015). Thus, it becomes important to note the fact that adherence
to medication standards are of prime importance to ensure better health outcomes
Conclusion and action plan
Based on both the incidents I have realised the actual requirements of my profession. It is
for the same reason I plan to form a systematic action plan. The action plan is highly
concentrated on the fact of obtaining clear knowledge about NSQHS standards and how it can be
implemented in my profession. During the initial stages I would write down all the information
available I realised I should interact more with the nurses and work on understanding how they
operate within the limits of professional ethics. I was usually afraid of confronting others about
their mistakes. However, I realised that I can improve the quality of patient’s treatment and that
prompts me every time. Now I feel can achieve excellence in my professional career. In addition
to that, I plan to transform the negative professional experiences with positive ones. I
additionally realised the fact that accepting the things as they are is not right. It is important to
probe in order to be on the right professional track and it seems that the reflectional tool can help
me in achieving my goals

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References
Cruz, J. P., & Bashtawi, M. A. (2016). Predictors of hand hygiene practice among Saudi nursing
students: A cross-sectional self-reported study. Journal of infection and public
health, 9(4), 485-493.
Flanigan, K. (2016). NSQHS standard-patient identification. ACORN: The Journal of
Perioperative Nursing in Australia, 29(1), 23.
Havers, S., Hall, L., Page, K., & Wilson, A. (2016). Turning policy into practice–Infection
control practitioner perspectives on implementation of Standard 3 criteria 10 aseptic
technique of the NSQHS standards. Infection, Disease & Health, 21(3), 143.
Levada, L., Johnson, J., Gore, A., &Ireland, S. (2015). Standards are living
documents... ACORN, 28(1), 25-27.
Liao, W. C., Tu, Y. K., Wu, M. S., Lin, J. T., Wang, H. P., & Chien, K. L. (2015). Blood glucose
concentration and risk of pancreatic cancer: systematic review and dose-response meta-
analysis. Bmj, 349, g7371.
Lorberbaum, T., Nasir, M., Keiser, M. J., Vilar, S., Hripcsak, G., & Tatonetti, N. P. (2015).
Systems pharmacology augments drug safety surveillance. Clinical Pharmacology &
Therapeutics, 97(2), 151-158.
Ritchie, A., Gaca, M., Siemensma, G., Taylor, J., & Gilbert, C. (2018). Australian health
libraries’ contributions to hospital accreditation and the National Safety and Quality

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Health Services (NSQHS) Standards: results of the Health Libraries for National
Standards (HeLiNS) research project.
Smiddy, M. P., O'Connell, R., & Creedon, S. A. (2015). Systematic qualitative literature review
of health care workers' compliance with hand hygiene guidelines. American journal of
infection control, 43(3), 269-274.

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