Question

How might you implement a program for part of a nurse's week to dedicated to education without comprising patient care?

Answer 1

"Recreating health professional practice for a new centuary- a bridge to quality of care".

The value of competency based education in nursing is that it can be strongly linked to clinically based performanc expectations. It should be noted that "competencies"denotes not task based proficiencies but higher level competencies that represent the ability to demonstrate mastery over care management, knowledge domains and that provide foundation for decision making skills under variety of clinical situations

The competencies in the aspect of professional behaviour focus in terms of ethical standards and cultural competency and emphasize areas of care especially preventionn and primary care.The main goals of this program includes:

• Providing patient-centerd care
• Applying quality improvement principles
• Working in interprofessional teams
• Using evidence based practices
• Using health information technologies

While students appear to graduate with ample factual knowledge of these types of core-competencies, however,they often appear to have little sense of application as well as integration in to day-today practice situations. Interprofessional Educational Collaborative across health professions could lead to better communication and coordination among disciplines. Defining these core-competencies must be a collaborative efforts among nurse educators,professional organisations and health care organisations and providers. This efforts should be ongoing and should ensure regular updates of nursing curricula to ensure that graduates at all levels are prepared to meet the current and future health needs of the population

Lifelong learning and continued competence

Nursing profession heavily depends on knowledge are bcoming increasingly technical and complex. Nurses whoare integral members of health care team, should be competant enough to provide safe and effective care. A single initial degree is not sufficient enough to provide the knowledge and skill needed throughout their career. Creating an expectation and culture of life long learning for nurses is therefore esential

From continuing education to continuing competence

Nurses, physicians and other health professionals have long depended on continuing education programs to maintain and develop new competencies over the course of their careers. A new vision of professional development is needed that enables learning both individually and from a collaborative team perspective and ensures that all health professionals engage effectively in a process of lifelong learning aimed squarley at improving patient care and population health