Industry Nurse Leader & Educator | Consultant: Enhancing Patient Safety | Ensuring Financial Stability | Author & Speaker | Healthcare Transformation
"Nursing Education: Bridging the Gap for Safer Patient Care" Let's dive into the world of nursing education. In a recent eye-opening interview, (https://lnkd.in/gDyD5gKi) we discussed the gaps between classroom knowledge and real-world application. New nurses often find themselves grappling with unforeseen challenges as they step into the dynamic realm of patient care. Recent studies during a rigorous assessment of over 10K new registered nurses reveal that only 9% can recognize patient deterioration before it’s too late. There is an increasingly widening chasm between nursing education and the requisite clinical reasoning and critical thinking essential to keep patients safe. 57% of novice nurses were challenged in their ability to manage patient problems, select the proper nursing intervention, and communicate relevant data to the healthcare provider. In the nursing literature, this has been identified as the “Theory to Practice Gap” and the need to “bridge this gap. We must collaborate to create meaningful interventions to make this crucial change in healthcare. What are your thoughts and experiences? Have you or someone you know experienced the transition from theory to practice in nursing? Share your stories and insights below. Let's explore how we can enhance nursing education to ensure safer and more effective patient care. 📚💉 🚀
Kathy Sokol
8mo
Thank you for this. As an older nursing instructor, I have seen the change in how we educate our nurses over the past nearly 20 years. The elephant in the room for me personally, is the lack of clinical experience our new graduates have had in school. Didactic is certainly important. But I feel that learning can be enhanced at the patient bedside. Even one good clinical day a week would go far to help seal the knowledge provided in the classroom. Working with live patients in real settings would help these nursing students develop clinical judgment and critical thinking. I understand the lack of clinical sites. But is there? Really? I believe some brainstorming could help this issue.
Jennifer Thietz
8mo
Thanks for this insightful article Julie Siemers, DNP, MSN, RN There was great merit in the hands-on aspect of the nursing program I did in South Africa. Our general nursing training took three years and was free. All new nurses started working a 40-hour week nursing "job" from the start of training for which we were paid. Not a lot, but enough to live off for those in nursing residences. As brand new nurse assistants/students, we all rotated in every unit, including OR, ER, ICU, Med/Surg, Oncology, Outpatients etc. We had three-month breaks where we went to school full-time from 8 to 4 pm for 12 weeks, then rotated back to the units. We did day and night duty and worked with nurses from the first year through the third year while training with nurse educators and RNs on the floor. At the end of 3 solid years of training, we had enormous experience. Hospitals did not need to pay for auxiliary help; they had that in spades with all the student nurses. Nurses tended to stay with their hospitals after training and generally knew what jobs they wanted. The transition to RN was much easier because we had years of working in units, watching RNs, and assisting them in many instances. This nursing experience was priceless.
I think this is a much needed area of study.
Natasha Jackson
8mo
One thing I recall about graduating from nursing school was the feeling that I knew nothing. It only began coming together once I started working on the floor, luckily I had a 6 week internship and that helped. Many new nurses are being placed to work without proper training because most facilities are so short staffed. I believe this leads to nurses being burntout faster.
Celeste Moore
8mo
I am so grateful for your service invaluable information ❤️
Leanna Hanson
8mo
The new NCLEX test plan that includes the Clinical Judgment Model I believe is the key to helping new nurses bridge the gap between theory and practice
Robyn Riedlinger
8mo
Love this!
Go Dr. Julie! Soo proud!
Nursing | Exuberant Erudition | Clinical Informatics I Patient + Patient Advocacy I #dystoniamovesme
8moDr. Siemers - My design of the VitalScout program at Cleveland Clinic focused on exactly this, as we created an effective early warning system (by nurses for nurses). As a nursing informatics specialist and technology enthusiast, when I was hospitalized and decompensated in the same hospital this past October (“Red” in my own system), it brought about a painful truth. The hospital stopped (years ago) paying for the in-person, CEU granting, education sessions designed to elicit open discussion about deterioration and communication skills. (A time also spent on the “why,” sharing stories of failure to rescue.) The transition gap describes how we do not graduate able to “assess from the door,” as we can after years of experience. Today’s new graduates are missing what I and many of us had - the experienced mentor to guide by side as they learn. We compound it by taking away resources as nursing budgets are slashed, as we remain on the wrong side of the balance sheet. We can absolutely do more to help our students with a framework that supports safety and guides their questioning, but we must keep fighting for nurses to have their experience valued at the bedside, where their mentorship fosters the future of nursing.