What does it really mean to deliver culturally safe care?

The comprehensive nursing assessment of an individual in any healthcare setting enables the bringing together of a wide array of information which is then used to make sound nursing diagnoses and decisions on appropriate nursing and care interventions.

While in an acute care setting, by nature of the environment, the nursing assessment may need to be more geared towards an individual’s physical and functional abilities, in the care home setting it is vital that nurses understand the importance of assessing not only the resident’s physical, functional, and cognitive state, but also their emotional, spiritual, and social needs. As members of the care team we are, after all, privileged to be working in our residents’ home and the level of care and support we document and provide should reflect that. 

Utilising care software offers the best opportunity for nursing staff to carry out comprehensive assessments at the bedside and ensure that the information is collated and documented at the source of truth. Only needing to document the information once but being able to access it in multiple places within the resident’s electronic care file is a huge time saver for staff. Not only does this save duplication of documentation and errors in transcribing but also the wasted effort of staff trying to access information in multiple folders or physical spaces within the home.