Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

An expected competency of a nurse is to provide patient-centered care. Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) defined this competency as recognition of the partnership with the patient in the provision of compassionate care that is coordinated and based on regard for the patient’s desires, values, and needs. The knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to demonstrate this competency are many. The business aspect of healthcare emphasizes numbers and completion of tasks. There has also been concern regarding the emphasis in nursing education on the science and biomedical knowledge without the inclusion of attentiveness to the individual receiving health care. When questioned regarding their work, nurses often describe the tasks associated with nursing as defining their work. Nursing care is more than tasks. Nursing is comprised of the relationships with the patient and their identified family members, knowledge both scientific and experiential, and the ethical values of the profession. It is important that the work of nurses who work in community hospice settings be visible. A study of registered nurses who worked in hospice agencies expanded insight about their lived experiences of knowing about and caring for patients receiving hospice care and how they provided patient-centered care. This presentation will provide insight to how nurses who work in hospice services delivered patient-centered care. It will offer visibility to the important work of hospice nursing and reveal that more than scientific knowledge is needed to provide patient-centered care in the hospice setting.

Biography

Rita Ferguson, PhD, RN, Clinical Assistant Professor, College of Nursing is a Certified Palliative and Hospice Nurse and currently teaches in the Undergraduate program and serves as committee chair for selected Doctor of Nursing Practice students. She is also a Certified Nurse Educator. Prior to her role as nurse educator in academia, she worked in multiple areas of clinical nursing. She was a clinical nursing director for a non-profit hospice for 5 years. She received her PhD from Mercer University in 2014 and is currently enrolled at the University of Alabama in Birmingham Geriatric Education Center Faculty Scholar program. Her research focus is nursing end-of-life care and nursing education. She currently is secretary for the North Alabama Hospice and Palliative Nurses Chapter and received the UAH Faculty Award for Excellence, College of Nursing. In May 2015, she received the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University Outstanding Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing Award.

Email: rf0001@uah.edu