Overview
Being a participant of the RN-to-BSN program, I have to participate in specific scholarly activities or some kind of professional practice in order to improve the already gained knowledge and share my personal experience. Today, there are many scholarly practices available to students, and it is not enough to make a choice and meet the goals established. It is necessary to develop necessary skills and make contributions to the development of the field of nursing. I choose a quality improvement committee as my additional scholarly activity in this program. According to the rules, students have to participate in this committee monthly and learn how to measure safety practices, improve the care offered to patients, and succeed in interpersonal communication. The target market for this activity includes students and nurses who understand the importance of improvements and knowledge and have some free time to meet the requirements of the committee. The benefit of this activity that I found is the possibility to learn something new in terms of the improvement of care quality I can offered to my patients regarding innovations and new standards.
Problem
This activity aims at solving a number of professional and personal problems nurses may face in their everyday practice:
- To measure quality of care that should be offered to patients;
- To discuss the results recently achieved by modern nurses and researchers;
- To educate how to promote the delivery of care services in a hospital (Mackey, Rooney, & Hart, 2014);
- To investigate what nurses have been already able to learn, how they use their knowledge, and what goals they are ready to achieve;
- To explain the role of culture and traditions in nursing regarding the needs of different patients.
A variety of knowledge and opportunities is impressive today, and nurses should use this activity as their chance to solve the main problem that is decision-making uncertainty in patient care.
Solution
Regarding the existing problem and goals that should be achieved by nurses, the solution can be developed within the frames of this activity. Nurses are able to combine their knowledge and use their personal experience and research results in order to comprehend how they should improve care quality and why they have to take all these steps. They gain confidence and knowledge in order to make appropriate and free decisions in their nursing practice.
Opportunity
There is a list of opportunities that are available to nurses who choose the attendance of a quality improvement committee as the main scholarly activity:
- The investigation of personal skills and knowledge;
- The improvement of the already gained practices;
- The recognition of the standards to be met in patient care;
- The analysis of structural variables and outcomes in care settings (Burston, Chaboyer, & Gillespie, 2014);
- The promotion of new steps and decision-making processes.
Program Competencies Addressed
Nursing competence is a list of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that have to be developed by any nurse to demonstrate a successful and effective performance. In terms of the RN-to-BSN program and the chosen scholarly activity, the following competencies are addressed:
- Professional communication with colleagues and patients;
- Implementation of new knowledge and skills;
- Skills in leadership and cooperation;
- Identification of various evidence-based practices;
- Recognition of necessary nursing practices in regards to the existing rules and standards.
As a rule, nurses are able to identify their weaknesses and use the program and the activity in order to improve the quality of their work and provide patients with high-quality care services.
References
Burston, S., Chaboyer, W., & Gillespie, B. (2014). Nurse-sensitive indicators suitable to reflect nursing care quality: A review and discussion of issues. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 23(13-14), 1785-1795.
Mackey, T.A., Rooney, L., & Hart, D. (2014). Academic nursing center primary care quality improvement using an electronic health record and a practice-based research network. Open Journal of Nursing, 4(9), 637-643.