Changing Healthcare One Patient At A Time

The Power to Heal

Changing Healthcare one patient at a time through caring…the power to heal.

The nurses at Northridge Hospital take pride in being a group of professionals who possess a personal sense of commitment and responsibility to provide care that facilitates health and healing. We embrace the concept that each patient and his/her family have a unique background and individual needs.

We care for each patient beyond his/her physical ailment and believe that caring and healing are dominant over physical healing and illness. We believe each patient and nurse is interconnected, which enables us to care for him/her with dignity and respect.

We will strive to provide a caring relationship that facilitates health and healing by doing the following:

• Maintaining Belief: We will maintain a belief in each patient and his ability to make it through events and transitions and face a future with meaning.
  
  
• Knowing: We will strive to understand events as they have meaning in the life of each patient and his family or significant other-understanding the lived realities of those we serve. We will avoid making assumptions by looking beyond each patient’s exterior and treating him with dignity and respect. We will center our care of each patient by thoroughly assessing and by seeking cues and expertise from other colleagues.
  
  
• Being With: We will strive to be emotionally present with each patient We will endure, listen, attend, disclose, but not burden.
  
  
• Doing For: We will do for the patient what he/she would do for himself/herself if it were possible by taking into account spiritual, emotional, as well as physical needs. We will preserve each patient’s dignity by protecting, comforting, and by performing competently.
  
  
• Enabling/informing: We strive to empower and educate our patients during life’s transitions, by explaining, informing, generating options, advocating, validating, and anticipating and preparing for future needs. We feel a personal commitment and responsibility to change the face of healthcare, one patient at a time, through compassionate caring, the power to heal!

Prepared by: Maria Goytia, RN and Kristy Kovacic, RN (adapted from Kristen Swanson: Five Caring Processes. 1993)