Professional Nursing Practice: Partnering with Consumers

This article discusses the significance of partnering with consumers in professional nursing practice and how it enhances service quality and patient experience. It explores the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care standards and the role of clinical governance in supporting consumer partnership.

Professional nursing practice
PARTNERING WITH CONSUMERS
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Professional nursing practice
PARTNERING WITH CONSUMERS
Introduction
In many countries including Australia, it is recommended that consumers be involved in
producing health services to improve service quality, innovation, and design(Delaney, 2018).
The responsibility of any leader in a health service organization to the community is to ensure
continuous improvement of quality and safety of their services(Newell & Jordan, 2015). They
are to ensure that their services are safe, effective and person-centered. They must develop,
implement and maintain systems that allow partnership with their clients. The partnership here
relates to evaluation, designing, planning, measurement and delivery of care(Delaney, 2018). It
is these systems that the workforce uses to partner with consumers(Delaney, 2018). When people
are treated with respect and dignity, given the right information about their care, and allowed to
participate and collaborate in the care processes or encouraged and given support that they
require then there is the existence of effective partnership(Greenfield et al., 2015). In Australia,
aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders would be advantaged if they are involved in such
considering the complex cultural practices they hold compared to other communities(Tobiano,
Marshall, Bucknall&Chaboyer, 2015).
A partnership based care delivery has benefit to clinicians, consumers, patients, health
system, and health service organization.The other benefit is improved safety, high-quality
healthcare, and positive experience for patients and effective partnership(Newell & Jordan,
2015). Patient and consumer involvement in evaluation and checking, or delivery can have a
positive result on service plan development, informationdevelopment, sharing and the attitude
providersof healthcare(Tobiano et al., 2015). Partnership based healthcare delivery can result in
a few admissions and cheap hospital charges.

Professional nursing practice
Quality and safety in the Australian health care system
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) works
closely with partners to review the national safety and quality healthcare System standards. In
2017 the commission developed the second edition meant to embed patient-centered care that
will address people’s needs especially those who are at high risk of harm(Vellar, Mastroianni&
Lambert, 2018). The second edition of NSQHS Standards set the requirement for comprehensive
care provision for all the patients(Newell & Jordan, 2015). They include actions that relate to
care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, end-of-life care, care for people with
mental illness or experiencing cognitive impairment and health literacy(Franklin & Melville,
2015). TheNSQHS Standards aims at improving the provision of quality health service and
protecting the public from harm. To ensure that they met the expected standards of quality and
safety the commission provides a mechanism of quality assurance that test whether the relevant
system is in place(Greenfield et al., 2015). The goal of partnering with the consumers is to create
person-centered care health system through the inclusion of patients in shared decision making,
ensuring partnership in their care, as well as involving them in the development and designing of
high standard health care(Newell& Jordan, 2015). The commission identifies eight NSQHS
Standards which that focus on responding to clinical deterioration, prevention of
falls,management, and prevention of pressure injuries,clinical communication,comprehensive
care, medication safety, healthcare-associated infections, and covering high-prevalence adverse
procedures(Franklin & Melville, 2015). What is even more important is that organizations
providing health care service are forced to provide a statement that is consistent with the
nationalconsumer standards of care consumers are expecting to receive in their service.

Professional nursing practice
In addition, these standards requires the wide systems of organization to implement the
eight NSQHS Standards that includes recognizing and responding to acute deterioration, blood
management(Meybohm et al., 2017), effective communication, comprehensive care,medication
safety, healthcare-associated infections,partnering with consumers and clinical
governance(Greenfield et al., 2015). Consumers Partnership Standard and the standard of
Clinical Governance remains the principal requirement for the other six standards to be
effectively implemented(Trevena et al., 2017). Patient care journey as described by NSQHS
Standardsis designed for implementation in aunified way(Franklin& Melville, 2015). Therefore,
this means that identifying the links between the actions of the eight standards will be very
important to help health service organizations in ensuring that their quality and safety systems
are integral(Cashin et al., 2017). Identifying the links between the eight will also ensure the
reduction of duplication of effort during the separate implementation of the eight standards
Following the successful implementation of the first NSQHS Standards of 2011, useful
improvements have been witnessed on the safety and quality of patient care. There has been
better documentation of medication history and adverse drug reactions, yearly reduction of red
blood cell issues between mid-2010 and 2015 by national blood authority to approximately
667,000 units from 800,000 units(De Labrusse, Ramelet, Humphrey &Maclennan, 2016).). The
health service organizations prioritization of antimicrobial stewardship activities has also been
witnessed. Lastly, and not the list there is the decline rates of intensive care admissions and in-
hospital cardiac arrest as a result of cardiac arrests.
Clinical care activity
The consumer partnership relates to designing, planning, measuring, delivery and
evaluating the care. These systems are used by the workforce to enable partnership with

Professional nursing practice
consumers. This standard aims at creating an organization where there are mutually valuable
results(Cashin et al., 2017). This happens if consumers are involved in planning, designing,
delivering, measurement, and evaluation systems and their care services(Newell & Jordan,
2015).Patients should be partners in their care in their own choice.
The criteria used for quality patients care quality improvement system and clinical
governance when supporting partnership with consumers are designed and used in supporting
patients, families, carers, and consumers so as they are partners in planning, designing,
measuring, and evaluation of healthcare(Phillips, Street &Haesler, 2014).
These criteria include patients partnering with their system of care based on partnering
with patients to support care delivery(Butenko, Lockwood & McArthur, 2015). The partnership
between patients and consumers are in different types within a healthcare system(Tobianoet al.,
2015). They are however not exclusive but also needed in every level to ensure organization
success in health service outcomes. The partnership takes different types of practices reflecting
three key levels needed in this standard(Phillips et al., 2014). Individual-level partnership relates
to clinicians and patients interacting during the care administration(Tobiano et al., 2015).
Partnership in this level involves providing respectful, information sharing and ensuring patients,
their carers, and families participate in planning and deciding on care while encouraging and
supporting their patient care. At the service level, the partnership relates to the systemor
organization delivering care within specific areas(Butenko et al., 2015). The partnership here
includes patients, their families, their carers and consumers participating in the department or
program and overall design of the service(Newell & Jordan, 2015). For this to happen, one
should be a full member of the redesign and quality improvement teamto participate in the
planning, implementation and change evaluation(Labrusse et al., 2016). At health service level

Professional nursing practice
partnership includes involvingthe consumers in the policygovernance as well as overall
plan(Butenko et al., 2015). This level is similar to service level since it is made of different
departments, programs or services. The partnership here also relates to involving consumers and
their representatives who act as full members of the organizational governance
committee(Vellaret al., 2018). They get involved in areas such as ethics and research, patient or
family education, quality improvement, facility design, and patient safety. Also in this level is
the involvement of local community organizations and local community members.
Driven by information
Clinical governance and improvement of system quality that support partnering with
systems of consumers are designed to be used in supporting patients, their carers, families, and
customers to be the healthcare partners for planning, evaluation, measuring and designing.
This is done by Integrating clinical governance(Vellar et al., 2018) Safety and quality
systems from clinical governance standards are used by clinicians when managing risks
associated with consumers; implementing policies and processes of partnering with them; and
identifying a requirement for training for partnering with consumers.
It can also be done by Applying quality improvement systems. This is applied by health
service organizations from the standard of clinical governance the processes monitoring of
consumer partnership; when carrying out strategies implementation that improves processes of
consumer partnership and when reporting a partnership with consumers(Butenko et al., 2015).
Informed consent and health rights. The charter of the right that used by health service
organization is easily accessible to patients, carers, families, and consumers, ensures health
service organization with informed consent process that complies with best practice and
legislation and consistent with the Australian charter of healthcare rights. Also, patients’ capacity

Professional nursing practice
to decide on the type of care or their advocates might be required when the patient may not have
the capacity to do so themselves(Labrusse et al., 2016).
It can also be done by decision sharing and care planning(Trevena et al., 2017). This
means that there is a process for clinicians partnering with the patients or the substitute decision
makers defined by the organization they come from(Murray, 2015). The aim of this is to plan,
communicate, goal setting, and decision making on current and future care.
The processes and data can be collected and measured through documentation, stories from the
patient, surveys, patients' perception, and experiences, and feedback from the workforce.
Documentation provides with information like structures that are put in place to effective
partnership and the process involved when partnering with consumers(Edvardsson, Watt&
Pearce, 2017). Some of the relevant document to capture this information from includes meeting
records, policies, project plans or materials for training(Gill, Leslie& Marshall, 2016). From
those document, you can gather information like details provided for the workforce, process and
the policies defining how consumers will be involved in their care among others.
The second way the data can be collected is through audit which gives data on what is exactly
done to partner with the consumers(Esmail, Moore& Rein, 2015). This may include healthcare
audits records that identify whether informed decision making took place(Esmailet al., 2015).
They also count the number of activities like meetings that involve consumers and states how
many were engaged in the committee.
Also, another way data is captured through surveying patients' experiences. The information here
is patients' perceptions, their carers, families and period they received care. Surveys asked how
much the patients are satisfied with the information and services they receive(Newell& Jordan,
2015). Data and processes can also be captured through Patient-reported outcome measures

Professional nursing practice
(PROMs). PROMS measures patients’ health-related quality of life as well as self-reported
health. Patients are asked to assess the extent of their health in terms of how severe symptoms
are, how they function, the amount of anxiety among others(Tobiano et al., 2015). There are also
other methods of capturing data and process and includes feedback from the workforce, and
patients' stories.
Conclusion
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) standard
works well in ensuring the quality and safety of the consumers. The commission works together
with associateswho helpin reviewing the principles of national safety as well as quality
healthcare System. Person-centered care is one of the most useful in creating patients satisfaction
on the medical services within the health service organization. Today hospitals are obligated to
ensure that they keep records and documentation of the procedures and services they will have to
offer to their consumers every year. The Australian Commission on Safety values patient-
centered care as it encourages the involvement of patients in decision making, participating in
their care and choose the type of care they want. Hospitals are complex environments. With so
many challenges in communication, it can take too long to implement even policies that may
seem easy. When the implementation a patient-centered care is done a better use of resources,
increased satisfaction with deceased cost of care, and improved outcomes will be witnessed.

Professional nursing practice
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