Nursing Care

Approximately 250 employees from the nursing service are responsible for the direct care of our patients at the Berlin Jewish Hospital. Over 98 % of them have completed a 3-year apprenticeship as a registered nurse.

In addition to direct care (personal hygiene, positioning, nutrition and dealing with excretions etc.), nursing staff duties include:

• Observing the course of symptoms in patients and informing the attending physician about these,
• Advising and instructing patients on how to deal with illnesses,
• Recognizing and taking into account the needs and resources of patients and supporting the individual well-being of the patient,
• Supporting patients to enable the quickest possible restoration of their health and – if this is not possible – to ensure optimal care after they are discharged,
• To coordinate the diagnosis and treatment processes in order to guarantee a smooth and efficient process
  
• Provide compassionate support for patients who are at the end of their life.

As the professional group with the most intensive contact to our patients, we try to make nursing perceptible as trusting, attentive, empathetic and relationship-building and to accompany patients through everyday hospital life, by taking into account their dignity and independence. This is why we have implemented “primary nursing” in increasingly more of our wards.

Primary Nursing at the Jewish Hospital

An inpatient hospital stay is a difficult and uncertain situation for every person. Numerous hospital employees, be they nursing staff, doctors or administrative employees, will get into contact with patients during the course of their hospital stay. This situation may seem very confusing to some people.

The nursing staff in the wards is the interface between the doctor, the patient, social services and plenty of other employees in our hospital. Experiences made during daily life at the Clinic show us that relationships with firmly allocated caregivers have a positive effect on the course of the patients’ treatment. For this reason, we have implemented “primary nursing” in selected wards at the Berlin Jewish Hospital since 2012.

Primary Nursing is a holistic nursing system which is oriented towards the needs of patients. So-called primary nurses are assigned to patients who stay in our hospital for longer than three days. These nurses are responsible for the patients assigned to them from admission to the final discharge. During this time a professional relationship will be built up between the patient and the nurse. This is why the primary nurse gathers all the patients’ care-related information at the beginning of the hospital stay. Based on these acquired insights, he/she sets up a nursing plan together with the patient. During the hospital stay primary nurses are then responsible for ensuring that the actions which were discussed with the patient are carried out in the interests of the patient.

Furthermore, primary nurses are the central point of contact for the friends and relatives of the patient as well as patients’ representative when communicating with other professional groups in our hospital. Through the continuity of such care, a trusting relationship is generated between the nurse and the patient, which can be especially helpful for patients in crisis situations.

We are active in the “German Network for Primary Nursing” of the German Professional Association for Nursing Professions (DBfK).

In order to evaluate the organization of our nursing care, we use “Instrument zur Erfassung von Pflegesystemen®” (an instrument for recording data).

The nursing staff is the most important interface between the patients and all the different professional groups involved in the treatment process. They are involved in controlling and organizing processes and they actively help to develop them. Therefore, nurses are involved when dates are set, during pain management and when preparing the patient for discharge.

Naturally, we discuss all the actions that are planned with our patients, we take their wishes into account during planning, we provide them with comprehensive information and provide opportunities for training and instruction.

In order to meet the demands of continuous development in medicine and nursing care, all nurses are obligated to attend at least 20 hours of continued development per year. Many nurses are additionally qualified as nursing experts, e.g. wound care, pain management or diabetes counselling and are integrated into the treatment process if necessary.

As a practical training institution, we cooperate with the Akademie der Gesundheit Berlin/Brandenburg e.V. (Health Academy) and provide 16 apprenticeship positions annually in nursing as well as others such as Technical Surgery Assistant and Medical Assistant. The apprentices are instructed by qualified practical trainers in all wards.

The nursing management team is intensively involved in pursuing measures for quality development and committed to furthering patient-friendly care on a political level according to current insights in nursing science, in order to ensure sustainability of quality care for the future.