As nurses at Swedish Covenant, we coordinate all the elements of your care, cooperating with everyone from your physician and dietitian to chaplains, social workers, and pharmacists, as well as any physical and occupational therapists. We take care of your health with a collaborative, case-management, team approach. It's important to us to understand your unique needs and coordinate the resources to fulfill them.
We operate according to professional models of care that allow us the autonomy to provide the best possible direct patient care, and accountability for our work and the coordination all of the health care professionals who are focused on your well-being.
According to our Chief Nursing Officer Mary Shehan, to ensure continuity of care, "our nurses need to understand how everything in the hospital works, as well as the resources and ways to get necessary support."
Each department at Swedish Covenant has its own model of care, to best address the needs of specific patient populations, such as critical care, emergency care, psychiatric care and surgical care, but all are based on collaboration, coordination and communication.
"The model of care is tailored to each individual nursing area and documented in a Scope of Service," Shehan explains. "Each Scope of Service, updated annually, clearly outlines methods for delivering nursing care in individual areas, reflecting the acuity of the patient's needs and the level of expertise required by the nursing staff."
Part of our model of care involves carefully evaluating the quality of care we give you with evidence-based criteria. We measure health indicators like vital signs and pain scales with universal numbers, a practice which makes communication clearer, and has been shown in studies to improve patient care. "There is evidence to back up all of our nursing practices," Shehan said, "either patient experience or current medical literature."
Swedish Covenant also encourages us to incorporate our unique skills into our caregiving practices. Some of our nurses are members of the Holistic Nurse's Society and can provide Healing Touch therapy. And our cultural diversity is a very valuable asset, as many of us use our second languages to better communicate with people who come to us for health care.
To learn more about our Journey to Magnet Excellence, click here. For more information about Nursing at Swedish Covenant Hospital, please call the Nursing Administration office at (773) 878-8200, Ext. 5600.
