Leddy and Pepper’s Conceptual Bases of Professional Nursing, Essay Example

What are the exclusive formatting features that distinguish APA formatting from other citation styles? First, it must be understood that APA represents the American Psychological Association recommended format for writing scholarly documents. The other commonly used citations are MLA, Harvard and Chicago/Turban. It is very important for students to recognize the difference between APA formatting and other forms of citation because it is the first step in avoiding confusion when common citations styles are used. Immature students could begin heading up in an APA style and then mix-up their writing with other types of formatting.  Besides, APA is commonly used in writing journal articles and books, while the other types predominate in other disciplines. For example, MLA is the modern languages association citation style and mainly used in the arts. APA is characteristically applied to the behavioral sciences psychology, sociology and anthropology (American Psychological Association, 2009).

Currently, the sixth edition is being used after four years of reforming the 5^th edition, which has become obsolete.  APA exclusive characteristics consists of rules. They embody guidelines for punctuation and abbreviations; construction of tables; headings selection and formatting; citation of references within the text and at the ending. There are specifics regarding presentation of statistics in scholarly documents too. Precisely, when examining a document  for determining its academic formatting style, these are the features that must be evaluated if the student is to develop competence in APA writing. These Ffeatures can become problematic when representing the style in papers (American Psychological Association, 2014).

Factors that ensure both written and oral communications with other healthcare professionals are clear and professional?

The factors that ensure clarity of written and oral communication among health care professionals are closely related to the communication chain of command. There is a chain of command that many business organization use for communicating information within the structure. Some use a top up and others up to the top. Both patterns can be adapted in the same organization for transferring different types of data. However, factors that ensure that these systems work depend on the ability of employees to maintain a cordial relationship with each other. There must be transparency within the organizational structure. Employees must feel secured that if sensitive information is shared it is not held against them, but kept confidential. Besides, an effective feedback system must be enforced to ensure clarity or for clarifications (Hood, 2014).

Description of how nurses can best use professional communication to improve interdisciplinary collaboration.

Professional communication entails applying communication protocols adapted by the organization. For example, if there are changes regarding a procedure for a particular patient, during the handing and taking over process, these changes must be documented and delivered to the nurse taking over on that shift. Before the final departure the taking over nurse must verify these changes with the one handing over the patient. This ought to be the procedure for every patient. A signature may be necessary to ensure that the correct information was delivered and received.

With respect to interdisciplinary communication, the electronic health record (EHR) system has been a very effective communication tool. To enhance collaboration using this tool means that nurses, doctors, and other members of the healthcare team must enter items correctly within the database for accurate transmission of patient data. Electronic health record systems when used as a form of communication is ineffective if relevant data is not entered immediately and read by the corresponding health care provider (Hood, 2014).

References

American Psychological Association (2014). About APA style. Retrieved on March 10^th, 2015 from http://www.apastyle.org/about-apa-style.aspx

American Psychological Association (2009).Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th). American Psychological Association

Hood, (2014). Leddy and Pepper’s Conceptual Bases of Professional Nursing (8 ed.).Lippincott Williams and Wilkins