How do you do it when you have a pandemic to fight off, limited resources to train your nursing staff and no time to do it in?

NURSE LEADERS AND CLINICAL EDUCATORS: How are you delivering effective training to your clinical staff in today's healthcare environment? Traditional methods for clinical education no longer work.

A message to my fellow RNs out there. Many of you are doing your best work ever during these times. Keep up the great work! This is the year of the RN to shine and show the world who we are is who we always have been! 

Nurse Leaders – keep supporting your staff through these times. Be sure they have the tools and resources they need to be able to do their job with fewer struggles and help them minimize the unnecessary stress! Help them deliver the quality patient care they came on shift to give today! 

With so much information coming at us, changing daily and with increasing demands on our nursing competencies, our current roles are evolving. It leaves us scrambling to develop good communication and clinical education that can be rapidly transferred into practice effectively. 

The situation is adding layers of stress for nurse leaders and clinical educators to develop quality information that nurses can use now to protect themselves and their patients. 

The good news is that there are ways to create quick learning moments and clinical education tools for the staff to grasp, learn and apply immediately. In all my years as a clinical educator and nurse leader I have worked so hard to hone in on what exactly nurses need to feel empowered with new information to do their job and by not wasting any of their precious time! 

What can you do right now? 

1. Define the education plan – focus on your audience, why do they need you to teach them a particular topic right now. Work through this to define the best possible time frame for the class as possible, one that does not demand more unnecessary time and energy from them. 
2. Have engaging and effective teaching tools that present critical concepts quickly, concisely and are easy to reference back to later. Think relatable and relevant pocket cards.  
3. Provide education to your staff through quick in-services that leave your staff feeling empowered given new critical information that is immediately applicable.  
4. Utilize evidence-based evaluation and competency tools on subject matter for later use by your team in follow up education. 

*** If you need some additional help with developing this type of material don’t hesitate to reach out to me and I can help you define your specific needs around clinical education plan development. I have spent years successfully developing cost effective education plans to meet any kind of education need. Leverage on my experience to see positive staff performance improvement! 

*** PM me if you would like to see any additional content created that you would find helpful to facilitate quick clinical education at your facility. 

Experience your staff's competencies and confidence grow and gain peace of mind that your staff has been properly trained with minimal impact to your valuable resources, time and money. Improve the quality of care and increase the safety of your patients through quality clinical training that is delivered concisely and effectively. 

Don't just survive with your current resources in education. Don't waste any more time or money training staff without having a concrete awareness of the effectiveness of your current training plans and tools, including your staff's current learning ability and readiness to learn. 

It is a stressful time for all in healthcare right now. Nurse leaders are overwhelmed developing processes and responding to the rapidly evolving needs of their community. Nurse Educators are having to find more creative ways to transfer critical information to staff. These processes are adding to stress and depleting your energy. 

Helping you develop concise, effective and quality education that your staff can find immediately applicable in the clinical setting can reduce for many of you a significant amount of unnecessary stress. Having current concise and accurate clinical training information and knowing that clinical competency is immediately developing is worth so much more, as the result is the one who benefits the most, the patient!