The working environment for nurses requires competitiveness and constant awareness of new procedures and technologies in the field. These nurses work in hospitals, surgery clinics, and doctors’ offices with common goals and objectives (Groves,2014). More so, there is an increasing demand to provide patient-centered care compassionately subject to the constraints of budget allocation. The values required for professional development include confidence, teamwork, and competency (Groves,2014). Nurses needed to have practice skills, communication, and compassion when dealing with their patients. The importance of life-long learning in the improvement of patient care cannot be overemphasized. Nurses should, therefore, enhance their careers to meet the changing individual needs of the patient. This document will explain the values, goals, and skills required for the evidence-based year.
Values
The profession of nursing is guided by professional ethics and values that assess the quality of care given. The core values that are considered in professional development include honesty, social justice, integrity, autonomy, and human dignity (Blais & Hayes, 2016). Professional values such as maintaining the confidentiality of patients as well as safeguarding their rights to privacy and meeting the health needs of diverse populace need to be considered during professional development (Poorchangizi et al., 2019). Ethical values are shared across the world and reflect the humane approach to nursing care. The code of ethics generally clarifies the practices carried out in providing quality care and professional norms. These values are also affected by socio-economic, religious, and cultural backgrounds of the dominant community. The technological advancement and expansion in the roles of nurses have led to the generation of ethical dilemmas that have since affected clinical decisions. Nursing education seeks to promote and internalize values to guide the practice and behavior in nursing (Shahriari, Mohammadi, Abbaszadeh, Bahrami, Fooladi,2012). It also seeks to encourage critical thinking, fostering supportive learning and providing opportunities for feedback.
Goals
The SMART goals for professional development include:
To provide excellent evidence-based patient care- the satisfaction of patients is the priority of healthcare personnel (Beausaert, Segers, Fouarge, & Gijselaers,2013).
- . The first stage of attending the patients is the check-in and the triage stage. The diagnosis and administration of drugs then follow this. All these processes influence the experience of patients and their satisfaction levels.
- To increase technological skills- rapid changes in technology in the medical field require training on the manipulation of medical devices and software. The technology enables the medical personnel to deliver appropriate care to the patients. Nurses need knowledge on troubleshooting in case of a computer malfunction and data monitoring to identify the spread of disease, respectively.
- To focus on career development- the nurses require knowledge on the evolution of clinical technology and pedology. The nurses need to learn something new every year through research on the appropriate mode of delivery of care to the patients.
- To develop interpersonal skills- a single patient in a hospital can see up to 21 staff in a day (nurses, lab technologists, pharmacists, and doctors). This means that collaboration and proper communication among the medical staff will come in handy when delivering quality care to the patients (Starke& Wade,2005).
Abilities
The nurses require various skills that can be acquired through personal development. For example, nurses need to understand cultural diversity that influences the patient’s understanding of wellness, care, and even death (Chris,2015). The nurses need to accommodate the preferences of the patients about their beliefs and customs. Abetting bias views through cultural awareness can help in developing skills in dealing with culturally diverse communities. Similarly, the principals and moral values displayed by the nurses will determine their level of professionalism in front of the patients and other team members (Chris,2015). Nurses should, therefore, display attitude, act with integrity, and collaborate with others in providing day to daycare to patients. The nurses should also develop skills that enable them to attend to details of clients to prevent any medical negligence. They should listen actively to the patients and observe any non- verbal signs of communication (Chris,2015). This will help the patient to feel that the concerns mentioned, and unspoken have been understood. Training the nurses to focus their work as people-centered than task-centered will avoid any distractions when handling the patients. The nurses also need to gain compassionate skills when dealing intensely with patients and their families (Beausaert et al.,2013). This may become almost impossible to achieve under the current environment where nurses experience fatigue due to longer shift hours as well as psychological stress.
Time management skills are acquired during training (Chris,2015). Nurses need training on how to prioritize their work, starting from checklists, shifts, data entry, and interpreting information from other staff. The nurses should be able to delegate tasks and supervise others until completion. Equally, communication skills between patients and health providers are essential when delivering care. The nurses should be calm and reassuring when dealing with patients and their immediate caretakers.
Barriers
The lack of access to resources has made it difficult for nurses to research on nursing interventions (Shahriari, Mohammadi, Abbaszadeh, Bahrami, Fooladi,2012). The bureaucratic process of the ethics committee makes it difficult for them to access healthcare intervention measures. The committees often refuse to approve applications by researchers to use surveys from the patients since they are subject to IRB regulations of confidentiality and protection of patient rights (Shahriari et al., 2012). Similarly, medical research is focused on intervention, and little is given to qualitative research (Bressan, Tolotti, Barisone, Bagnasco, Sasso, Aleo & Timmins, 2016).
Further, the nurses are also demotivated by the lack of their involvement in promoting healthcare prevention actively (Bressan et al.,2016). They often work as a part of the multidisciplinary team in consultation with the physician. The lack of prescriptive and diagnostic authority discourages them from furthering their knowledge of disease trends and technological advancements. Currently, there are no formally advanced roles of nurses due to the limited resources allocated to professional development. Civil unrest due to poor working conditions and remuneration have disrupted the environment for career progression since some of them may end up losing their jobs or sent or compulsory leave. Similarly, organizational constraints such as lack of support from the manager and time constraints have hindered research-based career development (Bressan et al., 2016).
The professional development plan documents the career goals of the nurses and the strategy on how to realize them (Martinelli,2020). The nurses work in a multicultural environment that requires skills to deal with diverse patients and provide evidence-based care (Olsen, 2019). The nurses need to increase their technical skills and focus on career development to remain relevant to the needs of the patient at the age of globalization. The nurses should develop compassionate ability and excellent communication skills when dealing with patients and family members. This will enhance the continuity of care and also impact positively on the experience and satisfaction of the patient.
References
Beausaert, S., Segers, M., Fouarge, D., & Gijselaers, W. (2013). Effect of using a personal development plan on learning and development. Journal of Workplace Learning.
Blais, K. K., & Hayes, J. S. (2016). Professional nursing practice: Concepts and perspectives (7th ed.) [Vital Source Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/
Bressan, V., Tolotti, A., Barisone, M., Bagnasco, A., Sasso, L., Aleo, G., & Timmins, F. (2016). Perceived barriers to the professional development of modern nursing in Italy – A discussion paper. Nurse Education in Practice, 17, 52-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.02.007
Chris, W. (2015). The role of nursing professional development in the future of nursing. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 31(1), 56-57. https://doi.org/10.1097/nnd.0000000000000144
Groves, W. (2014). Professional practice skills for nurses. RCNi | Information, and inspiration for nurses. https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-standard/professional-practice-skills-for-nurses-ns.29.1.51.e8955
Martinelli, K. (2020, January 13). Writing a professional development plan. The Hub | High-Speed Training. https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/professional-development-plan/
Olsen, S. (2019, November 30). How to write a professional development plan & why should you? InHerSight.com. https://www.inhersight.com/blog/how-to/professional-development-plan?_n=75674200#
Poorchangizi, B., Borhani, F., Abbaszadeh, A., Mirzaee., M. & Farokhzadian, J. (2019). The importance of professional values from nursing students’ perspectives. BMC Nursing, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-019-0351-1
Shahriari, M., Mohammadi, E., Abbaszadeh, A., Bahrami, M. & Fooladi, M.M. (2012). Perceived ethical values by Iranian nurses. Nurs Ethics. 2012;19(1):30–44.
Starke, I., & Wade, W. (2005). Continuing professional development-supporting the delivery of quality healthcare. ANNALS-ACADEMY OF MEDICINE SINGAPORE, 34(11), 714.
