Design Thinking Like a Nurse: A Professional Practice Model for Nursing Innovation

The COVID-19 pandemic made creative problem-solving, a skill that nurses have long possessed, more observable and valued. This article presents a new professional practice model for nursing innovation that facilitates practice improvements and leverages skills, strengths, and values that are integral to nursing. This model integrates the nursing process with Design Thinking and Theory U change management processes. A clinical case study illustrates the model's components in a pediatric oncology ambulatory center. Using this practice model, nurse leaders can leverage "design thinking like a nurse," to enhance innovation in health-care settings.

[An Experience Developing Nursing Excellence Using the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®]

The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) manages Magnet Recognition Program® certification. Candidates for this certification are required to pass a review comprising six compulsory documents and 84 sets of written documents in five model components as well as an onsite appraisal. The Magnet Recognition Program® for medical institutes is currently regarded as the highest honor in the nursing field. The series of measures necessary to establish a Magnet-recognized hospital is described in this article. Our hospital began preparation for recognition in January 2016, with the application submitted in May 2017. The required measures include establishing a Professional Practice Model, Governance Council, and National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators as well as implementing a mentoring plan. ANCC approved Magnet Recognition Program® recognition for our hospital in May 2020, making ours the first Magnet-recognized hospital in Taiwan. The nursing staff shared their experiences on their Magnet journey. Magnet-recognition demonstrates that a hospital is adequately equipped and trained to provide patients with outstanding nursing care and to operate an excellent nursing practice environment.

Implementing Relationship-Based Care as a Professional Practice Model: Promoting Nurses' Understanding and Confidence to Apply in Practice

Professional practice models (PPMs) guide nursing practice, professional behaviors, and clinical leadership. Health care continues to evolve (e.g., through health system mergers), and nurses may need to adopt and understand new PPMs to confidently align their interventions and professional nursing practice accordingly. The purpose of this project was to create an educational module about a new PPM based on the model of relationship-based care (RBC), which was adopted following a health system merger. The module was presented to a sample of nursing staff and leaders, who subsequently evaluated how it changed their confidence in and understanding and application of RBC in their professional nursing practice. Quantitative data showed that the module was an effective method to increase nurses' understanding of, and confidence in providing care utilizing, the RBC model. Qualitative data analysis generated themes (team building, need for self-care, being present, lack of time and resources, and resistance to or fear of change) about how implementation of RBC as the organization's PPM would change professional nursing practice, and barriers related to its implementation.

Fundamental care guided by the Careful Nursing Philosophy and Professional Practice Model©

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To propose the Careful Nursing Philosophy and Professional Practice Model^© as a conceptual and practice solution to current fundamental nursing care erosion and deficits.

BACKGROUND

There is growing awareness of the crucial importance of fundamental care. Efforts are underway to heighten nurses' awareness of values that motivate fundamental care and thereby increase their attention to effective provision of fundamental care. However, there remains a need for nursing frameworks which motivate nurses to bring fundamental care values to life in their practice and strengthen their commitment to provide fundamental care.

DESIGN

This descriptive position paper builds on the Careful Nursing Philosophy and Professional Practice Model^© (Careful Nursing). Careful Nursing elaborates explicit nursing values and addresses both relational and pragmatic aspects of nursing practice, offering an ideal guide to provision of fundamental nursing care.

METHOD

A comparative alignment approach is used to review the capacity of Careful Nursing to address fundamentals of nursing care.

CONCLUSIONS

Careful Nursing provides a value-based comprehensive and practical framework which can strengthen clinical nurses' ability to articulate and control their practice and, thereby, more effectively fulfil their responsibility to provide fundamental care and measure its effectiveness.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

This explicitly value-based nursing philosophy and professional practice model offers nurses a comprehensive, pragmatic and engaging framework designed to strengthen their control over their practice and ability to provide high-quality fundamental nursing care.

Exploring implementation of the Careful Nursing Philosophy and Professional Practice Model© in hospital-based practice

AIM

To explore the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing the two clinical dimensions of the Careful Nursing Philosophy and Professional Practice Model^© (Careful Nursing) in an acute care hospital.

BACKGROUND

Implementation of a professional practice model by nurses in hospitals supports nurses' control over their practice and enhances the quality of their contribution to patient care. Implementing such change is complex and initially best approached on a small scale.

METHODS

A mixed methods exploratory design was used. Data were sought from 23 professional nurses practising in a 26-bed acute medical ward for older persons. Quantitative data were collected on nurses' control over and documentation of their practice. Qualitative data were collected on nurses' perceptions of their practice.

RESULT

Nurses' control over practice and adherence to practice documentation standards increased. Overall, the nurses perceived Careful Nursing-guided practice positively. Feasibility issues were identified and addressed.

CONCLUSION

Exploratory evidence suggests that Careful Nursing could influence nurses' practice and overall perception of practice positively; its implementation is feasible.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Careful Nursing offers a distinctive nursing framework for professional practice. This study can provide a strategy for implementing Careful Nursing-guided changes in hospital-based practice on an exploratory level.

Professional practice models for nursing: a review of the literature and synthesis of key components

AIM

This review aimed to synthesise literature describing the development and/or implementation and/or evaluation of a professional practice model to determine the key model components.

BACKGROUND

A professional practice model depicts nursing values and defines the structures and processes that support nurses to control their own practice and to deliver quality care.

EVALUATION

A review of English language papers published up to August 2014 identified 51 articles that described 38 professional practice models. Articles were subjected to qualitative analysis to identify the concepts common to all professional practice models.

KEY ISSUE

Key elements of professional practice models were theoretical foundation and six common components: leadership; nurses' independent and collaborative practice; environment; nurse development and reward; research/innovation; and patient outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

A professional practice model provides the foundations for quality nursing practice. This review is an important resource for nurse leaders who seek to advance their organisation in a journey for excellence through the implementation of a professional practice model.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

This summary of published professional practice models provides a guide for nurse leaders who seek to develop a professional practice model. The essential elements of a professional practice model; theoretical foundation and six common components, are clearly described. These elements can provide the starting point for nurse leaders' discussions with staff to shape a professional practice model that is meaningful to direct care nurses.