LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf Hospital of the Heinrich-Heine University ...

lVr-KlINIKUM DÜSSelDOrF – HOSPItal OF tHe HeINrIcH-HeINe UNIVerSItY DÜSSelDOrF
2.2.4 Nursing
Director: K. Maas
The nursing staff of the LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf support
the patients in their efforts to cope with everyday stress
situations, to achieve physical and mental well-being, to
maintain, restore or adjust physical, mental and social
functions and to cope with existential experiences, i.e. to
solve problems and to manage human relationships.
Those members of the multiprofessional team whose
primary responsibility is the provision of nursing services do
not focus exclusively on the illness: nursing is understood
as a task that involves individual problem-solving strategies,
health preservation resources and important social and
domestic factors. The relationships between nursing staff
and patients can assume a key role in the therapeutic
process.
Nursing means to plan and to design, in agreement with
the patient and on the basis of a requirement-oriented
information-gathering process, activities aimed at improving
the patient’s individual well-being, interpersonal and
relationship skills, coping strategies, compliance, selfsufficiency
skills and self-confidence, at preserving existing
skills and at reducing or, better, eliminating risks and their
consequences.
Psychiatric nursing is closely involved in the therapeutic task
management and assumes – in close cooperation with the
other professional groups – responsibility for the individuals’
safe passage through the course of treatment.
Nurses who deal with inpatients and day care patients have
the following main responsibilities.
Continuous accompaniment of patients and observation of
the following:
s Illness-related limitations and resources,
s Changes in behaviour,
s Appearance and overall demeanour,
s Patients’ behaviour in standard situations (during
meals, leisure activities, etc.),
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s Patients’ behaviour in situations of social contact (with
other patients, nurses, etc.)
s Drug adherence and the effectiveness of these drugs.
Also:
s Designing and implementing patient-specific
psychiatric and psychotherapeutic nursing strategies
s Application of existing guidelines and nursing standards
pertaining to coercive and prophylactic measures
s Provision of stress relief for the patient through careful
cultivation of interpersonal relationships (one-on-one
conversations, relaxation techniques, skills, etc.)
s Provision of instructions and support (perhaps
compensation and active involvement) concerning
personal hygiene, maintenance of schedules and
routines to support time-structuring efforts, orientation
through explanations of rules, leisure activities
s Organisation of group activities (well-being
programmes to train the patients’ ability to enjoy
themselves, training of social skills, psychoeducation)
The rapidly changing legal and economic framework and
further innovations of the past ten years have had a major
impact on the face of nursing. Nursing has become less
conservation and preservation and more an instrument of
support for the development of self-sufficiency skills and
rehabilitation. This change also means that the results of
scientific research have been integrated into the field of
nursing. Effective and patient-oriented nursing requires
a permanent transfer of theory into practice, something
that is ensured by the LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf through a
comprehensive range of internal and external professional
courses of continuing education, among other things.
The following processes were restructured
within the past few years
Since the LVR is in the process of converting the
entire records of its hospital network to an electronic
data management system (project title: “KIS”
[“Krankenhausinformationssystem”]; Hospital Information
System), a system was required that was capable of