Ophthalmic Nursing
With a comprehensive nursing system, the Center successfully combines nursing management, clinical nursing, teaching, and research with preventive ophthalmology. The rapidly developing Center is a great platform for nursing teams. Department of Nursing always sticks to the principle of improving service quality and patients’ satisfaction, and encourages nurses to offer professional care for patients. The Department focuses on details, pursues excellence and innovation, and aims to maintain the leading role of the Center in nursing techniques across the country.
The management system of the Department consists of three levels: head of Department of Nursing, head nurse of each department and head nurse of each unit, and all levels are under the guidance of the director of the hospital. An appropriate structure and well-appointed talents ensure a sustained improvement in service quality and staff’s development. The Department, responsible for the clinical nursing of over 300 beds, now categorizes the Center into 17 service units, such as operation room, outpatient department, hospital ward and supply room. Since the inception of the “High Quality Nursing Service Demonstration Project” in 2010, the Department has succeeded in “Two Reforms”: reform in nursing model and reform in management. As for reform in nursing model, we have adopted the APN continuous shift arrangement according to the Responsibility System for Holistic Nursing Care, providing integrated, comprehensive, professional and humanistic services for our patients. As for reform in management, we have drafted job specifications for nurses. This serves as an incentive mechanism for staff’s appointment, training, assessment, promotion and career path. In addition, a series of rules and measures have also been carried out to secure professional nursing care, yielding remarkable results.
The Party and government leaders of the Center accentuate developing ophthalmic nursing. Development Committee of Specific Ophthalmic Nursing was established and further divided into Managerial Group on Ophthalmic Nursing Techniques and Nursing Group of Ophthalmic Diseases. The Department employs a training strategy of “Inviting in and Sending out”. We invite experts from other hospitals and countries to give lectures in the hospital and send nursing teams to famous hospitals for academic exchanges. In 2011, led by Bureau of Affiliated Hospitals Administration, SYSU, we established Committee of Ophthalmic Nursing and took the lead. Next year, we assisted Guangdong Nursing Association in the establishment of Ophthalmic Committee of Guangdong Nursing Association and was appointed as committee chair. In recent years, the Department has organized several courses for continuing education programs at national and provincial levels, offering a platform for academic exchanges between nursing experts from Guangdong and other provinces. Our nursing experts contribute to systematic nursing theories and techniques. Books like Nursing of Clinical Ophthalmology and A Guide to Clinical Ophthalmic Nursing, published by People's Medical Publishing House (PMPH) and Guangdong Science and Technology Press respectively, have become guidelines and textbooks for ophthalmic nursing and received praise from her peers. How to Assist in Ophthalmic Operations was also published by PMPH. The Research on clinical nursing is of significance for the Center. Research in Nursing Patients with Vitreoretinal Diseases written by Ms. Wu Suhong, director of Department of Nursing, won the second-rank prize of the Guangdong Science and Technology Award. The forehead-cheek bracket devised for postoperative nursing got the second-rank prize in the 2nd Innovative Competition of Nursing Materials as well as three national patents for utility models.
The Department pays attention to clinical management, laying down a set of regulations like A Guide to Nursing Administration, Nursing for Ophthalmic Diseases and Critical Care Handbook for Nursing. These regulations, drafted specifically for patients with ophthalmic diseases, have become guidelines for nursing administration and clinical service. The Department gives special care to patients with low vision and critical illnesses and offers them humanistic, comfortable and secure nursing services. This is for the safety of both patients and nurses, and has gained compliment from patients and the society alike.
The Department is also responsible for training junior college interns, undergraduate interns and graduate students majoring in nursing, and providing career building for new and experienced nurses. We give prominence to storage and cultivation of talents, encouraging student-centered teaching.
The Department actively cooperates with major public hospitals and participates in the Center’s work on preventative ophthalmology. We assisted Office of Preventive Ophthalmology in organizing postoperative nursing training for cataract patients in China, and successfully fulfilled our responsibilities in projects like “Health Bus Tour”, poverty deduction in Yushu, Qinghai province and Fengqin, Yunnan province as well as free consultation in Pacific islands.
The ophthalmology of the Center is one of the first fields accepted as national key discipline in China. Up till now, the Center is still the only place in China which possesses the State Key Laboratory for Ophthalmology. Recent years have seen a rapid development in disciplines and technologies of the Center, which has expanded the field of ophthalmic nursing, and enabled us to offer advanced and professional care for patients. Ophthalmic nursing is heading for a more scientific, professional and standardized future. From September 17th to 19th 2015, the Center held the first International Forum on Ophthalmic Nursing, creating a golden opportunity for academic exchanges. During the forum, experts from home and abroad shared their thoughts on the situation, trend and challenges of ophthalmic nursing, proposed possible ways of conducting clinical research, and exchanged views of hot topics in this field. Their friendly exchanges are vital to future academic research on ophthalmic nursing.