It’s the annual series of events to celebrate how nurses contribute to the health care system. The word crisis has been used frequently in preceding months and years, though we’re seeing the harvest of new staffing models, modalities of practice that some can prolong life just not with a great deal of quality of life. Yes there are some promising treatments in cancer such as immune therapy, individualized chemotherapy, and does anyone know what the Princess of Wales received “preventative chemotherapy”? In the province I live in there is still no electronic chart that is consistent from community sector to acute, long term or hospice etc. Certainly dictated reports are sent now via email to primary care teams but the system feels fragmented.
As an individual, with my own medical concerns, I generally determine my own best course of action, though a team may decide a certain program will be good for me. When I ended up with more pain and other symptoms I decide to use the settings which don’t cause more problems.
To speak to a specific specialist there is no method that I have encountered that a patient can be triaged to determine when an appointment can be optimally booked, in my case three weeks away and I am dealing with significant discomfort aka severe pain and limitations on mobility. As a RN I know strategies to work within the system, and the challenge is to bypass the medical secretary and speak to a regulated health professional.
Canada’s nursing week theme is “Changing Lives. Shaping Tomorrow” this is much more than tasks at point of care. It means research and evidence-based practices need to be moved from the academic arena to the practice realm. Nurses need the resource of adequate time to manage workload, a concept that was researched extensively by a fine nurse researcher Dr. Linda O’Brien-Pallas. Her seminal work revealed the reality of missed care as nurses did not have the time to complete all tasks. Computerized charting does not save time, as more data points are collected and one could ask is it all necessary?
Artificial Intelligence is within arm’s length, and perhaps finally, some relief will occur for nursing, a bedside monitor that could track a patient’s status and alert a nurse if something is different in the algorithm. Not to replace nurses but to augment their discipline of art and science and attain their full scope of practice. Many lives every 24 hours are changed by the presence of a nurse, to be there for the first breath and the last breath is humbling and a privilege. Shaping tomorrow means nurses need to be politically savvy, challenge the status quo, and not be penalized for speaking up for nursing and speaking out for health care (RNAO) Namaste.
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Paula M
Registered Nurse Storyteller, Healer, Scribe, Transformational Leader
Life of a Nurse 
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