ESTABLISHING STANDARDS OF NURSING CARE FOR PATIENTS WITH UPPER GASTROINTESTINAL BLEEDING

Abstract

In a climate of rapid changes in the structure of health services and the development of new categories of nursing personnel, it is imperative to define and set standards for the practice of nurses. Such standards demonstrate to the public that nurses are concerned with the quality of nursing care and with self-regulation to assure a desirable level of care. Quality of care is a multidimensional, yet elusive concept that reflects a judgment about level of care rendered to patients. One way to quantify a particular level of care and, thus provide a mechanism for measuring its attainment is to establish standards. Standards are defined as the desired or achievable level of performance related criterion, against which actual performance is measured or compared. In addition, standards of care are defined as authoritative statements that describes common or an acceptable level of client performance. UGIB patients need special nursing care, and to assure quality of this care it is important to establish standards of nursing care. The focus of the standards and the framework within which the multiple activities of nursing care performed needs to be determined. Nurses represent the largest percent of workers in hospitals and any disturbance in nursing performance will have an affect on care that is provided to UGIB patients, thus this study will attempt to evaluate nursing care at the hematemsis unit of Emergency hospital­ Mansoura University through establishing standards of nursing care for UGIB patients at the hematemsis unit.