Glossary

Any treatment based on clinical judgement and knowledge which a nurse performs to enhance client outcomes.

A relationship the nurse establishes and maintains with a client, through the use of professional knowledge, skills and attitudes, in order to provide nursing care that is expected to contribute to the client’s well-being.

(with respect to a response or action) Occurring within a timeframe required to achieve safe, effective and positive client outcomes.

Trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC) creates emotionally, culturally, and physically safe services by understanding the experiences of trauma and their impacts on people’s lives and behaviors. TVIC accounts for the intersecting impacts of systemic and interpersonal violence and the structural inequities on a person’s life, emphasizing both historical and ongoing violence and its traumatic impacts. Key principles include fostering trust by offering authentic choice, collaboration, and connection; providing strengths-based and capacity-building care to support clients; and creating environments where clients do not experience re-traumatization or harm.

A treaty is an agreement made between the Government of Canada, Indigenous groups, and often provinces and/or territories that define ongoing rights and obligations on all sides. A treaty is intended to provide a framework for living together and sharing the land Indigenous Peoples traditionally lived upon. Treaties provide foundations for ongoing co-operation and partnership moving forward together to advance reconciliation.

A person who may be an ally or may identify as someone from an equity-deserving group and believes in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. A trusted colleague is willing to support initiatives that can foster diverse and/or inclusive environments.

Paid health care providers who are neither licensed nor registered by a regulatory authority.

A rational conception of the desirable; a standard or quality that is esteemed, desired, and considered important. Values are expressed by behaviors or standards that a person endorses or tries to maintain. Values are typically organized into a hierarchic system of importance to the individual.

Methods used to communicate verbal orders are via telephone, spoken face-to-face or voicemail.

Includes any abuse of power, manipulation or control by one person over another that could result in mental, emotional, social or physical harm. Two descriptors of types of violence are interpersonal violence and structural violence. The former is a matter of person-to-person or person-group violence, while the latter is about systematic ways that social structures, organizations and institutions harm or marginalize people.

Virtual care refers to any interaction between client and/or members of their circle of care, occurring remotely, using any form of communication or information technology, with the aim of facilitating or maximizing the quality and effectiveness of client care. Virtual care technologies are those forms of technology that allows ‘virtual’ interactions with health care professionals to occur in real time, from virtually any location. Services provided using virtual care technologies range from simple to complex. Examples of simple technologies may include telephone, text, messenger, or email, etc. Examples of complex technologies may include, but are not limited to, live, two-way audio/video conferencing or virtual visits, teleradiology, telerobotics, remote control surgical instrumentation.

Groups in society who are systematically disadvantaged in a way that leads to a risk of emotional or physical harm; in health care, harms are related to diminished health and well-being.

Indicates the vast variety of knowledge that exists across diverse Indigenous communities and signals that learning goes beyond human interaction and relationships to include learning from other elements of creation such as the plant and animal nations, and to "objects" that many people consider to be inanimate.

A person’s state of being well, content and able to make the most of their abilities.

Reporting the unethical or unsafe practice of a nursing colleague or other health-care professional for such things as errors, incompetence, negligence or patient abuse. This action would be resorted to only after a person has unsuccessfully used all appropriate organizational channels to right a wrong and has a sound moral justification for taking this action.

Honoring the refusal of treatments that a patient does not desire, that are disproportionately burdensome to the patient, or that will not benefit the patient, is ethically and legally permissible. Within this context, withholding or withdrawing life- sustaining therapies or risking the hastening of death through treatments aimed at alleviated suffering and/or controlling symptoms are ethically acceptable and do not constitute euthanasia. There is no ethical or legal distinction between withholding or withdrawing treatments, though the latter may create more emotional distress for the RN, NP and others involved.

Includes behaviours such as verbal abuse or threats of harm, continual criticism, demeaning remarks, intimidation and undermining, as well as more subtle behaviours such as refusing to cooperate, being unavailable to give assistance, hampering another’s performance and making their work difficult. Workplace bullying is the term now used for what was previously described as horizontal or lateral violence, which placed responsibility only on individuals and excluded the responsibility of organizations.