Time Management in Nursing: Balancing Priorities as a Nurse

Introduction

During my placement in the second week (28.09.2019), shortly after completing the medication round on the rest home wings, my preceptor asked me to check the work log on the hospital side. On my way to fulfill this task, I was approached by a health care assistant who urgently requested my assistance in dressing a resident's legs. The resident had incurred skin tears with bleeding due to scratching. Recognizing the immediate need for care, I chose to prioritize the dressing procedure, as I believed it was essential (International Journal of Nursing Practice, Nursing Prioritization of the Patient Need for care: A tact knowledge embedded in the clinical decision-making literature October 2009), with the intention to review the work log afterward. About thirty minutes after completing the dressing, my preceptor inquired whether I had checked the work log. I explained that I had attended to the resident's needs first and would now proceed to check the log. This response prompted my preceptor to address my time management skills, emphasizing the importance of prioritization, direction, and delegation of duties in nursing. This experience left me contemplating the dilemma of prioritizing resident needs over scheduled activities within a specific duty shift, highlighting the crucial role of time management in nursing.

Feelings on the Nursing Experience

I went to the patient and assessed her wound site, soon after the health care assistant informed me regarding the bleeding as I felt that this was the priority over checking a work log. I felt sympathy to the resident I thought that I could do it soon after the dressing. I felt annoyed with myself for not speaking to the preceptor about the issue as I had thought I had made the right decision to help the resident. I was concerned about the resident safety and comfort and I felt I could not justify leaving the resident when he/she has a concern.

Evaluation of Time Management Skills

After the incident, being told my mentor that I need to improve on my time management skills, direction and delegation of duties (Nurses storied experiences of direction and delegation by Margaret Hughes 2017, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ) because I choose to do the dressing. This experience made me feel as though I needed to learn and develop more on the time management and direction and delegation of care. I decided I would have to do a research on the meaning of both these aspects as I think that my time management skills are fine. I always on time for duty and I finish all my responsibilities on time as well as I delegate the tasks to others effectively and I always make a list of things I needed to do and prioritize them. This made me a question how I was performing it now.

On evaluation, the event was good in a number of ways. Firstly, I could understand the importance of time as a registered nurse in accomplishing all the tasks in time. Secondly, it helped to know the significance of prioritizing things and added my experience od dealing with multiple tasks at a time. In addition, I understood what my preceptor expect me as a registered nurse while delegating and directing duties to others, which I am not used to do in my previous areas. However, there were also some negative elements. I felt so annoyed regarding the prioritization of patient care and became so anxious and I understood the need of doing my professional development in in in order to enhance my abilities in this respective aspects.

Analysis of Time Management as a Nurse

On reflection, I am happy that the resident received the care at the correct time and was comfortably settled. The importance of time management will strike me at some time in my career as a Registered Nurse. I will be inundated with work and I will need to evaluate how to manage my time effectively. There are three basic steps to managing time. The first step requires time to be set aside for planning and establishing priorities by ranking them high (life-threatening problems), medium (health- threatening illness) and low(normal development needs)(Patient prioritization tools and their effectiveness: a systematic review protocol, Article no;78, 2019). The second requires completing the highest priority task whenever possible and finishing one task before starting others. The last step involves reprioritizing the tasks again. Regarding delegation and direction, a Registered Nurse must direct duties to enrolled nurses and health care assistants and ask for help when needed. What happened if unattended? The resident would have had to wait whilst I checked the work log and would have been left with bleeding. This could cause many consequences.

Conclusion

If the same situation was to arise again I think I would approach it in a slightly different way. Time management is a complex process (Time Management in nursing, Sep to Dec 2018, volume 11, International Journal of caring science) and should go hand in hand with prioritizing things. If you’re not able to do it will stress yourself and tour team members as well can cause some potential harm to the patient. An effective way to render care is to analyze, prioritize, intervene and evaluate

After considering all these, I believe that I have done the right thing as the resident was my first priority. The resident would have been at risk if I had unattended her. As a registered am accountable for my action (Importance of professional accountability, Nursing mode incredibly easy, Nov to Dec 2017, volume 15, Issue 6) if the same situations occurs in the future, I would not do anything different other than justifying my decisions. I identified and minimized the risk of resident which will be done in the future by respecting the needs and dignity of residents.

Works Cited

1. International Journal of Nursing Practice, Nursing Prioritization of the Patient Need for care: A tact knowledge embedded in the clinical decision-making literature October 2009
2. Nurses storied experiences of direction and delegation by Margaret Hughes 2017, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ
3. Patient prioritization tools and their effectiveness: a systematic review protocol, Article no;78, 2019
4. Time Management in nursing, Sep to Dec 2018, volume 11, International Journal of caring science
5. Importance of professional accountability, Nursing mode incredibly easy, Nov to Dec 2017, volume 15, Issue