Nursing documentation as important part of the medical documentation
Autori:
Kristina Hanžek
Sažetak
Summary
Nursing documentation is part of the patient’s medical documentation and, according to the Nursing Act in the Republic of Croatia, nurses have the obligation and duty to maintain such documentation that records all procedures performed on the patient during a 24-hour period. Documentation is important due to: legal protection (nursing documentation is a document that verifies facts and claims in case of potential legal dispute or conflict), monitoring healthcare costs (it enables tracking costs in relation to effectiveness, is a source of information for research that can obtain significant results useful for the development of nursing practice, nursing standards,
improvement of the quality of health care (documentation is proof of provided health care and nursing interventions), social changes, improvement of communication in the team. Correct and timely nursing documentation with accurate and relevant information about the patient significantly affects successful communication in the multidisciplinary team due to the availability of nursing records in the hospital information system, as well as other members of the team who are in charge of the patient. One of the most important components of nursing documentation is the permanent monitoring of the patient’s condition, i.e., decursus, in which all changes
in the patient during a 24-hour period are documented (symptoms, signs, descriptions of the new state of the patient, possible causes, and additional data that is not stated in the anamnesis). In previous studies deficiencies have been identified, such as untimeliness in documentation, incorrect data, discontinuity in the documentation of the decursus, unclear instructions. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the importance of nursing documentations a legally regulated document in nursing profession in Croatia and as important part of the overall medical documentation.