The nursing intellectual theory was brought forth to help in the area of inquiry in the health industry. The theory abstracts the knowledge of the nurses available within an organization (Covell & Sidani, 2013). It allocates the relationship of this knowledge to patients and organization outcomes. Nurse intellectual capital is the knowledge of nurses in an organization. The greatest concentration is focused on the inpatient care units because this is where the nurses provide care to the hospitalized patients before being discharged (Covell & Sidani, 2013). Discharge is an important process in the aspect of nursing health care that needs planning and hence the need for nurses interventions.
From the intellectual capital theory, the nurses can intervene to bring on board their knowledge and skills which are considered as valuable stocks to the organization for the benefit of the patient and organization’s outcomes (Covell & Sidani, 2013). The nurses provide discharge education in what they consider a complex health care such as ostomies.
They nurses play an indispensable part in the release procedure which prevents early discharge of patients. They are the closest professionals to the patients and are also a link between other professionals (Weiss et al., 2014). They also link the ostomy patients and the family members who have to be on board when giving education on ostomy before discharging the patient. They establish a nurse patients/caregiver education program which will ensure full education hence minimizing early discharge cases.
Nurses intervene by knowing how to find out the perception of the family members and the patients towards the release process. It enables the nurse to prepare adequate and appropriate strategies. Family members though happy that their loved ones are coming home might be worried about giving the patient care (Weiss et al., 2014). When the nurses are aware of these feelings, they incorporate their intellectual capital regarding offering practical skills to both the patients and the relatives and by so doing they can minimize on early discharge.
Lastly, nurses can intervene to reduce early discharge by developing a schedule to meet with other care clinics within the organization or from outside. They can also kick-start a process of assigning a primary care provider to the ostomy patient. While not overlooking other aspects all these will help minimize the early discharge to ostomy patients.
- Covell, C., & Sidani, S. (2013). Nursing Intellectual Capital Theory: Implications for research and practice. Online Journal Issue Nursing, 18(2).
- Weiss, M. E., Costa, L. L., Yakusheva, O., & Bobay, K. L. (2014). Validation of patient and nurse short forms of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale and their relationship to return to the hospital. Health services research, 49(1), 304-317.
