Illuminating Nursing's Value: The 12 Anthroposophic Nursing Gestures

Abstract

Nursing care historically has not been separated from institutional care costs. Organizations seek to quantify nursing care with no assignation of the value or uniqueness of the individual patient-nurse encounter. New models point to measuring care at this level. Nursing care encompasses tangible evidence that can be easy to quantify but, in the paradigm of healing and caring, and more specifically within the knowledge pool of holistic nursing, significant contributions are intangible and thus hard to measure. Anthroposophic nursing's 12 nursing gestures offer an integration by making intangible nursing practice tangible. They incorporate addressing the whole person and more clearly show the caring and healing aspects of nursing care. Making such intangibles of care tangible contribute to the discussion of nursing value and how it is measured in healthcare organizations. More research is needed, however, to refine and value nursing care to more accurately reflect the connection between caring, healing, and patient outcomes.

Keywords: anthroposophic nursing; healing; holistic nursing; intangible and intangible nursing care; measuring nursing value; spirituality.