Reflective Journal Entry-Week 5

1. Share what you had expected to learn about the topic before beginning the unit.

This week I expected to learn about different roles of healthcare professionals. I expected to learn about how nurses can help other professionals and how they can help us to make sure all of our jobs are completed. 

2. What you actually learned from the unit.

This week I don't feel like I learned a lot about the different jobs that each healthcare professional does. I do feel like I learned a lot about interdisciplinary teams and how these can be useful to the overall health of our patients. I learned how to approach interdisciplinary teams and determine when they are necessary in order to better the recovery of my patients and their overall education. 

3. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the activities (individual and team)?

I felt like all of the different activities this week were useful in order for me to better understand the information that was needed to learn. The team discussion was useful for me because it was in a case study format which helped me to understand different views of the situation which will help me in real life situations that I might be in. The individual case study was also useful for me to go through the interdisciplinary team process. However, the critical thinking exercise was confusing to me and how it applies to the current unit. 

4. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I will utilize the information that I have learned this week in my daily nursing practice. Due to the different case studies that I completed this week individually and as a team will help me to apply these nursing processes into my nursing practice. It will also help me to use the interdisciplinary team when it would be useful and how to help interdisciplinary teams to be successful. 

5. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel like this information is important to talk about and learn about in as a nurse. I believe that multiple nurses have a wrong idea about what interdisciplinary teams are used for but after this unit I will be able to use this team in a better and more efficient way. 

Reflective Journal Entry Week 4: Legal and Ethical Issues

1. Share what you had expected to learn about the topic before beginning the unit. Before beginning this unit and looking and the objectives and overviews for this module I expected to learn about ethical issues that pertain to quality improvement and nursing.

2. What you actually learned from the unit. I learned about current ethical issues that involve quality improvement and I also learned about different ethical and legal situations nurses and quality improvement personnel have to deal with and further critically think about how I would act or conduct myself in these types of situations.

3. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the activities (individual and team)? I really enjoyed the learning activities this week because I felt like they were all really applicable to my career in nursing and are things that I can look back on throughout my career and see the way I thought through these types of situations when I had a lot of time to research and think about the issues as well as take into consideration what my team members opinions were in these types of situations. These learning activities were very thought provoking and were great learning experiences.

4. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice. I will definitely utilize the information that I learned this week throughout my career. There are so many different types of legal and ethical situations that I will be placed in as a nurse and to have the experience of critically thinking through those types of situations previously in this class will help me to critically think through similar situations in the future. I also learned a lot from this module on how to prepare or prevent these types of situations from happening with charting and using the modes that are put in place to protect me such as incident reports.

5. You personal feelings about the material covered. I feel like the material covered in this module was very beneficial for me and will be material I can look back on in order to continue to improve my nursing practice. I think it information that nurses do not think or avoid thinking they will run into throughout their career but is something we need to realize will happen and having the chance to experience it through these assignments and case studies will be beneficial for us in the future.

Reflective Journal- Week 3

1. Share what you had expected to learn about the topic before beginning the unit.

This week I expected to learn about specific quality improvement strategies that would help me throughout my nursing career. 

2. What you actually learned from the unit.

I learned about quality improvement strategies and competencies that are available as checks for nurses in order to improve the care we give to our patients. I also learned about different resources that are available with these competencies that are valuable for nurses to participate in because it betters our understanding of how to give better care to our patients. I also liked the case study and the critical thinking activity this week. I thought it was interesting to research both topics and better understand patient quality and patient centered care. 

3. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the activities (individual and team)?

I enjoyed the discussion this week because it was like a real life situation where I was able to bounce ideas off of other nurses. This helped me with my critical thinking skills as well. It was an activity that helped me to recognize the roles a nurse plays as a patient advocate. I also enjoyed the individual case study this week because it gave me the opportunity to research resources that could help me to become a better nurse as far as the QSEN competencies are concerned. 

4. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.
I will utilize the information that I learned this week to better educate myself on ways that I can improve in my nursing practice. I will utilize the resources that I found to improve my QSEN competencies. 

5. You personal feelings about the material covered.
I thought this material was interesting to learn about because I love learning about specific ways to improve my nursing care. I also like applying this information to real life situations. I feel like the information that I have learned in this unit will greatly benefit my nursing skills and quality of care that I give to my patients.

Reflective Journal Entry- Quality Improvement

1. Share what you had expected to learn about the topic before beginning the unit.
 After reading the title of this module and of the lectures I expected to learn about ways to improve the quality of my care that I give my patients as well as the quality that people receive in general in the hospital.
2. What you actually learned from the unit. 
I learned that quality matters in all aspects of business, especially healthcare because it is such a vital part of peoples lives. I also learned more about what people/patients expect as far as quality goes in the healthcare setting. I learned about my own opinion of quality in healthcare from the patient and the nursing standpoint. I also learned that there are always ways to improve the quality of care given, but as a nurse I always need to be working at this.
3. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the activities (individual and team)?
I liked learning more about how other people viewed quality from the discussions. I liked reading about different definitions that I can now add to my personal definition of quality. I also liked reading about how others view quality in healthcare. Like I talked about above, it was interesting to see on a personal level how my view of quality differs as a patient and a nurse. I would like to work on this to see if I can make this list more of the same items. 
4. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.
I will utilize this information by applying it and improving the quality of care that I give to my patients on a daily basis. I will take the things I learned from the evaluation I did on myself to treat my patients the way that I would want to be treated. I will also look at the experiences that others have had from the discussion and apply those things to my nursing practice. 
5. You personal feelings about the material covered.
I feel like this material is essential in becoming a better nurse. Without quality of care we are not going to be the best nurses and our patients will suffer because of that. Learning about ways to improve the quality of care and applying this will help us to become better nurses and give our patients the care that they deserve. 

Critical Thinking 2- Week 2

• What do you consider elements of quality care when receiving healthcare services?
• Safety: I want healthcare workers to use proper techniques and have proper safety while caring for me such as washing their hands before assessments, using sterile technique with IV's and making sure that nothing bad will happen to me when I am under their care.
• Timeliness: When dealing with healthcare I do not want to be waiting for long periods of time for a thirty minute check-up.
• Effective: I want those caring for me to be sure I will benefit from the things they suggest. I also want them to be effective when I visit them. For example, I do not want to have to go back to the doctor multiple times for different tests, I would rather get it done all at once. 
• Equitable: I want to receive the same standard of care that every other patient receives when they walk into the doctors office. I do not want to receive less care because I am a nurse or because I do not make as much money as somebody else. 
• What do you consider elements of quality care as a professional nurse?
• Patient centered care: When I provide care to my patients that makes them feel respected and so they feel their needs are met based upon their values that, to me, is considered quality nursing care. 
• Advocacy: I want to be able to know my patient well enough that I can be an advocate for them and stand up for the things that they want as a patient and help other health care professionals know if I disagree with things they suggest or have the patient do. 
• Safety: I want my patients to feel safe when they are in my care. I also want to make sure that I am doing things to prevent harm to them, no matter how little these things may seem. Improving a patients safety is improving their health in my mind. 
• Are the two similar or different?
• When prompted with these two different questions it seems that different answers come to my mind. However, I feel like this is because I am on the opposite side of answer these questions, for one I am a patient and for the other I am a nurse. However, overall, I feel like the way I would want to be treated as a patient, would be the way that I treat my patients as a nurse. The priorities of these things might be different depending on the situation but ultimately if I listed every single detail I would want these lists to be the same.