Family Centred Nursing in Healthcare: Enhancing Patient Care and Outcomes

Running head: FAMILY CENTRED NURSING IN HEALTHCARE
FAMILY CENTRED NURSING IN HEALTHCARE
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1FAMILY CENTRED NURSING IN HEALTHCARE
Healthcare professionals should ensure quality service for patient satisfaction and
positive patient related outcomes. Family nurse practitioners (FNP) deliver comprehensive
care to an individual which is a part of the family centred care. The FNP has a vital role in a
family centred care of critically ill patients (Goodyear, 2018).The nurses practicing family
centered care take care of physical, mental and psychological health of the patient. The FNP
needs to build a healthy relation with the family and especially with the parents to get critical
information and support if it is required. It is important for the FNP to integrate with the
family while practicing family centered care of the critically ill patients. It helps them during
clinical facility designing, evaluation and assessment of the critical situations, schedule
treatment, decision making and delivering precise healthcare at the vulnerable situations
which is critical for a critically ill patient in a family centred care facility. In this paper
various aspects of family centred care of critically ill patients by family nurse practitioners
will be discussed in detail.
The content, feature, requirement of family centred care in relation to critically ill
patients will be discussed in the report. The valuation of database and information system
related to nursing to gain knowledge which can help in critical decision-making of a FNP will
also be deliberated in this report.
EHR use
An EHR makes health information instantly accessible to authorized providers across
practices and health organizations (Practice Fusion, 2017). Family centred care of the
critically ill patients by the Family nurse practitioners (FNP) has some specific contents and
features about it. Critically ill patients require special care and empathy from the FNP as they
cannot make their own decisions in most of the cases. Family-centred care is a method where
healthcare is delivered to the patients with mutual consent from the family of the patient and

2FAMILY CENTRED NURSING IN HEALTHCARE
the healthcare providers (King & Chiarello, 2014). In case of critically ill patients the family
makes the decision for the patient along with the nurse to plan, evaluate and deliver
healthcare to the patient. Further, use of HER helps the healthcare professionals to
record critical patient data for example, the past medical history, allergies, progress
notes, medications, vital signs, surgeries/procedures, immunization dates, lab data,
diagnoses and imaging reports so that while undergoing the care process, healthcare
professional could implement effective care process in the treatment. EHR further,
helps the healthcare professionals and patients to make shared decisions and determine
goals for the process. For example, if any patient is suffering from type 2 diabetes and
in the process puts on excessive weight, the healthcare physicians would be able to
assess the level of diabetes and all other primary symptoms associated with it. These
would be the BGL level, hypertension condition, patients respiratory and heart rate and
then depending on that would be able to provide him with diet and exercise plan so that
both the overweight and diabetes condition could be treated simultaneously. Hence,
through this EHR system, the physicians would be able to implement effective and
accurate care without waiting for the lab reports, medication condition, allergic
condition or others. Further, the patient would also be provided with depression
assistance and counselling sessions would be arranged for him so that his mental and
physical health and wellbeing could be balanced. This is an effective approach as the
healthcare physicians would be able to assess all the important information from the
EHR system of the healthcare facility so that timely and effective care could be provided
to the patients.
Regular communication between the FNP and the family of the patient results in
increased satisfaction for the family as they feel they are also part of the decision-making
(Shields, 2015). At the same time the morale of the nurse goes and subsequently the