Best organizational practices that foster scholarly nursing practice in Magnet® hospitals

The effectiveness of continuing professional development for the residential long-term care workforce: A systematic review

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the effectiveness of continuing professional development in residential long-term care.

DESIGN

Systematic review.

DATA SOURCES

PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL), and Web of Science.

REVIEW METHODS

Empirical studies published between 2003 and 2023 describing the effectiveness of continuing professional development in long-term care were selected according to PRISMA guidelines. The type, topic, and effectiveness of continuing professional development activities in long-term care were analysed, in addition to facilitators and barriers. The protocol of this review is registered in PROSPERO.

RESULTS

A total of 155 studies were selected, including over 17,000 participants the majority of whom were nurses. The most common topics were 'dementia care' (n = 22; 14.2 %), and restraint use (n = 14; 9 %). The impact of continuing professional development was mainly evaluated in terms of 'participant satisfaction with continuing professional development' (n = 5; 3 %), 'staff knowledge' (n = 57; 37 %), 'staff competencies and skills' (n = 35; 23 %), 'resident outcomes' (n = 45; 29 %), and 'staff wellbeing' (n = 12; 8 %). A total of 64 (41 %) studies evaluated if impact of continuing professional development was sustained over time. 'Good organisation', 'a supportive learning environment', 'expressing personal preferences', and 'management support' were described as facilitators of continuing professional development.

CONCLUSIONS

Increasing numbers of long-term care residents with complex health conditions require nurses with advanced skills, such as dementia care. To improve the effectiveness of continuing professional development, support from managers, who adopt relational leadership styles, is instrumental to integrate new knowledge and skills into practice. This needs to be linked to career progression, and consequently increase the attractiveness of working in the long-term care sector. This could meet the dual goal of improving outcomes for residents and nurses' job satisfaction.

Leadership in intellectual disability practice: design, development, and evaluation of a programme to support practice

BACKGROUND

Intellectual disability services have and continue to experience changes in service provision. This has an implication for leadership in practice as the quality of leadership has a direct influence on staff practice and care provided.

AIM

To design, deliver, and evaluate a leadership programme for nurse and social care managers in Ireland.

DESIGN

An accredited programme was designed based on evidence from literature, practice, and national expertise. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect information on the attitudes and behaviour of participants before commencing and after completing the programme. Data from the questionnaires were analysed using SPSS and open-ended questions were analysed using content analysis.

SETTING

Intellectual disability services.

PARTICIPANTS

102 participants completed the programme and survey.

METHODS

Pre-post survey and reported using the CROSS guidelines.

RESULTS

Participants' expectations were rated highly, and all items scored higher in the post-survey. Qualitative data was overall positive regarding opportunities for more time to work through each aspect of the programme. The key learning was through the forum day where participants shared their group projects.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the programme was positively evaluated and through engaging with the programme participants' perceptions moved from seeing leadership as mostly task-oriented to realising that qualities such as good communication, person-centredness, advocacy, supporting, role modelling, and empowering are key to leadership.

Being a nurse between research and clinic: What challenges and opportunities for a PhD-prepared nurse? Overview from an Italian paediatric hospital

AIM

To report a reflection on the role, challenges and opportunities for nurses with advanced education in research outside the academic field.

DESIGN

A discursive paper.

DATA SOURCES

We reported the case of an Italian paediatric research hospital where PhD-prepared nurses started to apply their knowledge and competencies in different fields, both in clinical and organizational settings. From this experience, an overview of the possible barriers and challenges that PhD-prepared nurses may face up within the hospital setting.

DISCUSSION

The application of PhD-prepared nurses in hospital settings could be an opportunity to advance high standards of quality of care in managerial and clinical areas and to create networks between highly specialized professional figures and different clinical-care realities.

CONCLUSION

More research is needed to explore how to apply the advanced competencies of PhD-prepared nurses within healthcare organizations to provide high-quality and safe care and services. This paper can provide insights for a reflection on applying and developing PhD-prepared nurses' skills and competencies within the hospital setting in clinical, research and managerial areas. This can enhance the effective application of highly competent nursing professional figures.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No Patient or Public Contribution, due to study design.

Nurse managers' perceptions of nurses' professional autonomy-A qualitative interview study

AIMS

To describe nurse managers' perceptions of nurses' professional autonomy in hospitals and their role in promoting it.

DESIGN

A qualitative descriptive approach.

METHODS

Fifteen nurse managers participated in semi-structured focus group interviews in two university hospitals in Finland between May and June 2022. The data were analysed using inductive content analysis.

RESULTS

Nurses' professional autonomy in hospitals is perceived according to three themes: individual qualities behind independent actions, limited influencing opportunities in the organization and physicians' central effect. The nurse managers perceive that they enhance nurses' professional autonomy by promoting the nurses' independence at work, their sufficient and up-to-date competence, their expert role in multi-professional cooperation and joint decision-making and an open and appreciative work community.

CONCLUSIONS

Nurse managers can enhance nurses' professional autonomy with shared leadership. However, there are still gaps in nurses' equal possibilities to influence multi-professional work, especially outside of patient care. Promoting their autonomy requires commitment and support from leadership at all levels of the organization. The results advise nurse managers and the administration of the organization to maximize the potential of nurses' expertise, along with encouraging nurses towards self-leadership.

IMPACT

This study provides an innovative approach to nurses' roles through their professional autonomy from the perspective of nurse managers. These managers have an important role in enhancing nurses' professional autonomy, empowering and supporting them in their expertise, enabling necessary advanced training, and maintaining an appreciative work community where all have equal participation opportunities. Thus, nurse managers have the opportunity to strengthen high-quality multi-professional teams' ability to jointly develop the patient's care for better outcomes through their leadership.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No patient or public contribution.

Building a Transition Program for Senior Nurse Leaders

Professional development educators undertake a primary role in building organizational transition programs for nurses. Transitions of senior nurse leaders are complex and poorly understood. A Hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted to investigate the lived experiences of nine novice senior nurse leaders. Four principle themes and five subthemes are identified so that professional development educators may customize situation-specific learning for senior nurse leader onboarding.

Disciplinas de aprendizagem organizacional para o desenvolvimento de enfermeiros-líderes

Objetivo: analisar as evidências científicas sobre a aplicação dos conceitos das disciplinas da aprendizagem organizacional de Peter Senge para o desenvolvimento de enfermeiros líderes em ambiente hospitalar. Método: revisão integrativa, realizada mediante busca nas bases de dados Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Scientific Electronic Library Online Citation Index e Scopus. Resultados: foram identificadas 616 produções e incluídas no estudo oito. Evidenciou-se um hiato na produção de conhecimentos sobre a aplicação desses conceitos para o desenvolvimento de enfermeiros líderes. Caracterizado por pesquisas produzidas em uma ampla variedade de países, em inglês e português do Brasil. Identificado o uso dessa contribuição teórica como recurso de aprendizagem organizacional para a área da saúde e Enfermagem, orientado para a melhoria do ambiente laboral nos serviços e no hospital, bem como integrador das equipes. Conclusões: a investigação possibilitou a ampliação do conhecimento científico na área da saúde e Enfermagem a respeito do emprego dos conceitos da aprendizagem organizacional de Peter Senge na área da saúde e Enfermagem. Apresentados como avanços para o desenvolvimento da liderança, contributos para o despertar de um novo olhar para o preparo, capacitação e qualificação profissional, de modo a incentivar a mudança de comportamento e dos cenários de atuação mediante ações voltadas para a prestação de uma assistência segura e de qualidade. Recomenda-se uma investigação aprofundada acerca dessa temática, dada a relevância da liderança, considerada uma das competências gerenciais essenciais para o desempenho do enfermeiro durante o exercício do trabalho nos serviços de saúde e, mais especificamente, no hospital.

The Exemplary Practice Life of the Nurse

Nurses consistently stand out in extraordinary ways especially during a global crisis, recently confirmed in the current Covid-19 pandemic. What is opportune this time is the call for clarity around what nurses do and what society can expect from them. Nurses, as members of a global profession, need a platform to build a contemporary practice life. This paper proposes the model: The Exemplary Practice Life of the Nurse. It provides a framework to explicate the essence of the role of the nurse. The model posits four inter-related essential components or pillars that ground a nurse's behavior and commitment: professionalism, leadership, scholarly practice, and stewardship. This uncomplicated, straightforward model is universally applicable for nurses to apply in whatever roles they hold and at any point in their careers. The use of a holistic model, as a guide across a full career trajectory, supports the nurse's ability to prioritize individual pillars while understanding the inter-relationship and influence among the four pillars. The authors pose assumptions that form the basis of the registered nurse role and provide the foundation for the exemplary practice life of the nurse. They make recommendations to nurses, the profession, the workplace, the academy, and the community.

Factors that optimise the impact of continuing professional development in nursing: A rapid evidence review

OBJECTIVES

Continuing professional development is essential for healthcare professionals to maintain and acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to provide person centred, safe and effective care. This is particularly important in the rapidly changing healthcare context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite recognition of its importance in the United Kingdom, minimum required hours for re-registration, and related investment, have been small compared to other countries. The aim of this review is to understand the factors that optimise continuing professional development impact for learning, development and improvement in the workplace.

DESIGN

A rapid evidence review was undertaken using Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework; identifying a research question, developing a search strategy, extracting, collating and summarising the findings.

REVIEW METHODS

In addressing the question 'What are the factors that enable or optimise CPD impact for learning, development and improvement in the workplace at the individual, team, organisation and system level?' the British Nursing Index, the Cochrane Library, CINAHL, HTA database, King's Fund Library, and Medline databases were searched for key terms. A total of 3790 papers were retrieved and 39 were included.

RESULTS

Key factors to optimising the impact of nursing and inter-professional continuing development are; self-motivation, relevance to practice, preference for workplace learning, strong enabling leadership and a positive workplace culture. The findings reveal the interdependence of these important factors in optimising the impact of continuing professional development on person-centred care and outcomes.

CONCLUSION

In the current, rapidly changing, healthcare context it is important for educators and managers to understand the factors that enhance the impact of continuing professional development. It is crucial that attention is given to addressing all of the optimising factors in this review to enhance impact. Future studies should seek to measure the value of continuing professional development for people experiencing care, nurses and the wider organisation.

Factors related to nursing performance in South Korean intensive care units

AIM

The purpose of this study was to investigate potential factors that influence nursing performance in South Korean intensive care units (ICUs).

BACKGROUND

As nursing performance is directly related to patient outcomes in the ICU setting, identifying factors related to nursing performance at various levels could contribute to improving those outcomes.

METHOD

A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed with a convenience sample of 177 nurses having worked at least 6 months in an ICU. Data were collected from 2 to 16 March 2018.

RESULTS

Workplace incivility from supervisors and patients and their families was negatively related to nursing performance, whereas a relation-oriented culture and task-oriented culture were positively related to nursing performance. The factors that predicted nursing performance were nurse age and a task-oriented culture.

CONCLUSION

Based on study findings, hospitals should focus on mitigating workplace incivility to help improve the nursing performance. Also, hospitals should develop strategies to assess organizational culture and foster relation- and task-oriented culture to maximize nursing performance.

The Prismatic Midparadigm of Nursing

The disciplinary perspective of nursing is guided in part by its metaparadigm, which includes the concepts of human beings, environment, health, and nursing. While relevant to the discipline as a whole, these abstract concepts are not meant for operationalization into the practice environment. The authors in this paper introduce a midparadigm of nursing-namely, the prismatic midparadigm-for applications in research, practice, policy, and education. It is a framework of concepts that are less abstract, but congruent with, the metaparadigm and more specific to the practice environment with the context of vulnerability as central.