Nursing Pyramid, Essay Example

The nursing pyramid is an instrumental illustration of the foundations and ideals required to promote a quality nursing and medical environment.  Although it is often customary to begin with the bottom and build up, it is important to note the top section of the pyramid is comprised of two important goals: World Class Patient Care and Excellence.  Each component within the nursing pyramid has been strategically placed in order to achieve the ultimate goals of creating and maintaining a world class environment and care for patients.  Three critical sides of the pyramid are designed to lead a vertical pathway as guidance for nurses to achieve the main two goals in any nursing environment.  If these three categories or each subcategory are not substantially achieved, the ultimate goals of world class patient care and nursing excellence will not be attained.

Each upward side of the pyramid is a part of three intangibles that are essential to achieving world class patient care.  These three components are called the respectful workplace, collaboration and skilled communication.  It is interesting to note that skilled communication does not have any subcategories, which shows that this is a large enough component in itself.  There are several challenges along the pathway to achieving skilled communication including intercommunication, body language and overcoming language barriers between nurse-patient, nurse-nurse and nurse-physician relationships.  Without needing any additional explanations, it is clear that the nursing pyramid is designed to showcase the strong importance of skilled communication as a necessary tool in a hospital.  Without strong communication, the quality of care for patients is limited and many different errors can occur including incorrect treatment and incorrect medicinal dosage to name a few.

A respectful workplace is shown on the nursing pyramid to be the foundation of the entire unit.  Beginning with structure, process and outcome, a hospital environment relies on these basic components for nurses to provide the best possible care.  As the pyramid moves upward, it begins to focus more on the types of relationships and specific roles that are necessary to help guide, educate and unite the nursing staff within a hospital.  For instance, authentic leadership and shared governance are each important to ensure that the processes and desired outcomes of patient care are achieved.  Furthermore, partnerships are necessary for nurses to work together in each of the three different types of medical relationships already described.  The higher the pyramid, the less general and staff-focused the components become and it begins to focus primarily on the achievements of the individual nurse such as evidence-based practice, innovation and translational research, and finally integrated primary nursing.  Each of these last three components can be controlled primarily by the individual.  However, this nursing pyramid showcases that without a strong foundation and the emphasis being placed on working as a team, the most important goals will not be attained.

Finally, the last side of the pyramid involves collaboration which is similar to the foundational components of the respectful workplace.  Through working together, a nursing staff is able to achieve many great feats.  It is when individuals attempt to work alone and places the individual goals ahead of the goals of the nursing staff that the quality of care for a patient diminishes within a hospital.  This side of the pyramid focuses on the ideals that make collaborative efforts necessary.  For instance, tradition, teamwork and opportunity each make up the first three foundational blocks of this side of the pyramid.  Without these basic components, a nursing staff is not able to have the foundation necessary to work together to achieve its goals and provide quality care for the patient.  Again, the pyramid concentrates on teamwork and overall collaboration as previously discussed.  The upper levels for this section include professional, diversity and integrity, which ultimately support the ultimate goal of providing nursing excellence to the hospital.  These can definitely be considered individual goals and components, but they should also be viewed as collaborative measures necessary to implement strong levels of care.  A hospital sees myriad degrees of patients enter its doors and requires a professional and diverse staff to respond to all of the challenges proposed by any given circumstance.  It is clear that the nursing pyramid stresses the importance of improving the level of care and nursing excellent; however, without combining each of the subcategories and three sides of the pyramid, no staff will be sufficient to provide the necessary quality of care for any patient.