Presbyterian Nursing Vision

To promote nursing excellence in a healing and compassionate environment.  

Philosophy of Nursing

The philosophy of nursing exists to articulate the values and beliefs of the nursing department. Nursing is essential to achieving the organizational purpose.  The philosophy is intended to guide day to day practice and decision making.  The following principals assist the nurse in decision making for clinical practice.

• The client/patient is the central figure in the healthcare delivery system.  The client is defined as the individual, the family as defined by the patient and the community.  Clients are treated with respect, kindness and understanding.
• The primary work of nursing is to meet the client’s needs for health status improvement along the continuum of the care delivery process.  Nursing care is individualized as reflected in the Nursing Interdisciplinary Plan of Care (NICP). 
• Nursing services are delivered in a culturally sensitive manner recognizing the unique needs of individual patients and families.
  The nursing community is committed to collaborating in a multidisciplinary environment to coordinate the delivery of patient care services.
• Commitment to collegial relationships within the nursing community and among disciplines is valued.  Collegiality means that mutual value and respect guide the multidisciplinary practice.
• The Nursing Community is actively engaged in performance improvement activities.  Nursing evaluates in-process measures, clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction with the care delivery process.  When possible, nursing utilizes concurrent review mechanisms to assess completeness of the patient record.  Performance improvement strengthens the nursing practice.
• Accountability for professional practice is the responsibility of each nurse and clinician.   Individual nurses are expected to maintain current knowledge in their area of practice through professional development activities.  The nursing community supports a variety of professional development activities for the nurse.  It is recognized that the nurse may be an expert in retrieving and accessing just-in-time knowledge from the Presbyterian Electronic Library (PEL) or from real time nursing resources like the Charge Nurse, Coordinator, Director, the Nursing Supervisor, etc.
• Nursing practice at Presbyterian benefits from the use of medical, automation and clinical information technologies.  The nurse recognizes that such tools are intended to improve documentation at the bedside, safety and effectiveness of practice.