That approach is standard procedure at the Primary Care Division, City of Austin, Texas, where Connie Hockema, RN, is charge nurse and facilities manager. Mothers who bring in newborns for checkups often reveal their own medical problems. Or a husband accompanies his wife to an appointment, and the woman asks if the nurse can look at a problem he is having. Nurses need to be made aware of the benefits of intervention and be given permission, support and direction from someone who has seen it work, Joseph said. They have to buy into it, test it.
People get used to their routine, they have to branch out a little bit.
But teaching is our role. Nurses teach all the time. She understands that for today s busy nurse, the thought of adding intervention on top of the day s work might seem overwhelming. But she asks nurses to set modest goals maybe just one patient a day. The payoff is astronomical.