Reflection of Health Standards

Running head: REFLECTION OF HEALTH STANDARDS
REFLECTION OF HEALTH STANDARDS
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REFLECTION OF HEALTH STANDARDS
The first step of the reflective cycle is called the description change where the event
needs to be discussed in details. During the time of clinical placement, I had to work with
another colleague within a multidisciplinary team. A patient who had suffered a chronic heart
failure had been admitted to the rehabilitation ward for future treatment and recovery. I was to
work with association with that nurse in providing nursing care for the patient. However, while
providing care to the patient I noticed that the other nurse was not communicating with the
patient at all. Although, I was communicating well with the patient and listening to his concerns,
the other nurse was highly fidgety in actions and was an impatient listener. He interacted neither
with me nor with the patient. It was also seen that he was highly introvert and did not discuss
anything with me regarding the health of the patient. I asked the nurse to provide the food
instruction to the staff aid after discussing the type of diet the patient is comfortable. I saw the
nurse asking the patient the food he wants to have but did not listen to him completely. He cut
short the patient stating that he had understood. He told the staff nurse to bring vegetable salad
with cabbage, lettuce and other vegetables and asked him to bring a glass of milk. Later, the
preceptor was seen to get disappointed with the nurse as the patient had allergic infection due to
lettuce and cabbage and his taking of vegetables had interfered with the warfarin that was given
to him. He conducted medication error from drug-food interaction and breached effective
communication not listening to the patient’s allergic reactions with lettuce and cabbage and
cutting him shortly. He also did not communicate with team members and all these affected his
care. The patient had allergic reactions and the vitamin K in the salad components resulted in
antagonistic effects on the warfarin affecting health of the patient.
I felt quite upset seeing the suffering of the patient. I was also disappointed with myself
as I could not guide or help the nurse with my knowledge about the medication errors that took

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REFLECTION OF HEALTH STANDARDS
place. Moreover, I should have tried myself to communicate with the nurse although she was
introvert. I felt upset, as he had to suffer many consequences for providing unsafe interventions
for the patient. I also felt bad about the embarrassments he had to face when all the members of
the team were blaming of his ineffective communication skills and body language. I understood
that he need to develop his communication skills and drug-food interaction knowledge and
therefore proposed him to do so.
The third stage is the evaluation phase. In this incident, two health standards put forward
by the National Quality and Safety Health service standards. One of the most important
standards breached is the medication Safety standards. This standard mainly advises the nursing
professionals to follow systems as well as strategies that would help the professionals to properly
administer medications, prescribe them effectively and dispense them correctly (Lee et al.,
2018). They need to administer the medication to the patient effectively, monitor the use of the
medications and evaluate the effects of the medication. It was seen that the nurse in the incident
did not know that medication of warfarin and vitamin k of green leafy vegetables would interact
antagonistically and this might affect the health of the patient. Another standard that was also
breached is the standard 6 of the guideline standards that talks about the significance of
communicating for safety. This standard describes about the system and the strategies that are
important for continuing effective communication between patients, caregivers as well as
families, different multidisciplinary teams and clinicians and among the health service
organization (Goosen, 2015). The nurse communicated neither with the team members nor with
the patient that affected the health of the latter. Had he listened to the patient completely, he
would have knows that he is allergic to cabbage and lettuce and this could have avoided the
negative consciences of the patient.