Nursing Program at Plaza Medical Center

Meghan Trahant
“Great 100” Nurse | 2008

Professional models of care vest nurses with authority, responsibility and accountability for the patient care they provide.

The model’s purpose is to ensure that a match exists between the delivery of care at the bedside and the kind and degree of support a nurse receives in the form of organizational resources. It empowers nurses to make decisions that meet the needs of their patients, and that have a positive impact on clinical outcomes. Nurses also serve as coordinators of care through active management that helps prevent or reduce complications.

Plaza’s Nursing Department has adopted a Compassion and Healing Model of Care, which is in turn based on the Relationship-Based Care Model. The latter conceives of healthcare as a network of relationships and places the patient and his or her family members and loved ones at the center of all care activities. The key relationships under this model are those between the nurse and the patient and the nurse’s professional colleagues as well as that of the patient with himself or herself.

Nursing assignments are based on the acuity of the patient and the skill level of the caregiver. Direct communication ensures the availability of vital clinical information. This is accomplished through bedside report and SBAR - an acronym for “Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation.” It is a tool for organizing information in a logical pattern so that it can be communicated to others in an accurate and timely way.

At Plaza, our Model of Care is consistent with our Vision Statement.