Organizations typically define their guiding principles through mission, vision, and values. According to Dahlgaard et al. (2009), healthcare organizations often base their philosophical and care models in theory. Theory, research, education, and practice are directly interconnected. For the research, it informs education and practice by offering evidence for best practices for teaching and nursing care delivery. On the other hand, education is the setting for learning with the practice setting being the area where educated practitioners are educated, and evidence-based nursing care is offered to clients and patients. This is as opposed to the theory that informs on the theoretical concepts, nursing metaparadigm concepts, beliefs, assumptions, and values in nursing theory. In this paper, an organization nursing philosophy and theoretical foundation for nursing model has been identified and evaluated in length.
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The selected hospital is the Highland Hospital. It is characterized by a history of innovative and personalized care. It is a regional leader in diverse specialties which include the bariatric surgery, total joint replacement, geriatric care among others. The philosophy of the hospital is informed by the need of provision of exemplary patient and family-centered care. Additionally, they leverage their competitive advantage from the provision of excellence in health care while ensuring that their patients and families are actively included in decision making.
At the Highland Hospital’s Department of Nursing, the nursing practice is headed by Dr. Jean Watson’s Human Caring Theory. According to Watson and Woodward (2010), this theory is evidenced by the Patient-Centered Care and Patrician Benner’s Model of Novice to Expert. From a general perspective, the nursing theory is a term that is offered to a body of knowledge and used in supporting the nursing practice. In this case, Clarke et al. (2009) noted that it is often prepared from the theories and concepts. In the context of the Highland Hospital, the nursing theories are used in assisting the nurses in assessing, planning and implementing the patient care through the provision of a framework within which to operate from.
Theoretical Underpinnings
The background of the human caring theory can be linked to the desire of sourcing for the relationship between the human caring and nursing. According to Watson and Woodward (2010), the author of the theory established ten curative factors which had been identified as the core of nursing. The identified factors were later developed critically into the modern Human Caring Theory. The author of the theory identifies the new elements as the clinical care processes which determine the spiritual dimension of love and caring. This is the underlying factor that is significantly used by the Highland Hospital Department of Nursing in their operations. Nevertheless, despite the theoretical underpinnings of the theory, some assumptions characterize the best practice of the theory implementation. The assumptions include, caring can be identified efficiently and practiced from an interpersonal perspective, caring is inclusive of curative care, effective caring leading to promotion of health and individual, caring leads to the development of potential while allowing a patient to select the best action for themselves. The major concepts characterizing the human caring theory as practiced in the Highland Hospital Nursing practices include people, their health status, the surrounding environment, society in which they are found and the existing nursing practices.
The philosophy characterizing the use of the theory in the hospital is that their healthcare services need to be well structured and operating through a common language. In this case, the application of the theory allows the practitioners in the hospital setting to proclaim the diversity of their beliefs, values, and the essence of reasons they practice as nurses. In this case, the deep roots in caring as enshrined by the theory are critical in informing the caring practice apparently set by the Highland nurses. In this case, connecting the philosophy and the theory, it can be argued that the caring is oriented toward continuous healing relationships. Patients are the source and center of care, customized and reflected in terms of their values and needs of their patients. This is coupled with the caring provided in an environment of comfort and support and caregivers fo