Development of a continuing Education

Development of a Continuing Education
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Abstract
According to the NASN, the quality of nursing practice has a direct linkage to the knowledge and skill level of the practitioner (National Association of School Nurses, 2014). Nursing instruction is a rigorous process that provided the foundational basis for medical, nursing, and knowledge in science. With the always changing health care system in terms of care provision, technology, and knowledge nursing practice demands a commitment to continuous education and a strong continuous pursuit for current knowledge. By acquiring and maintaining such information, the nurse’s competency, knowledge, and skills improve that translates to better patient care and treatment outcomes. This paper looks at continued education programs with a focus on certification review course for nursing staff development in ambulatory care. Therefore, this paper describes the program, the rationale, the purpose, target audience, marketing strategies, the required resources, program objectives, and evaluation method.
Introduction
An Ambulatory Care Centre (ACC) refers to any freestanding healthcare facility that is staffed by a single or more healthcare professional and provides outpatient care basis with no overnight stay (APIC, 2013). Transmission of disease through infection is possible in ACCs during routine care procedures as in any other hospital setting where medical care is provided. Reduction of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) requires that staff implement the required infection prevention measures during routine care activities (APIC, 2013). There are guidelines that if implemented and followed, will prevent incidence of infections in ambulatory care hence improve patient care and treatment outcomes. Therefore, nursing staff in ambulatory care require continuous education in order to improve their competency in care provision and reduce infections for outpatients.
Continued Education Program
Title: Nursing Staff Professional Development Certification Review Course
Description
ACCs require infection prevention programs in order to monitor HAIs and prevent the spread of diseases/infection within the facility. This program covers daily operations and emergency management plans. Infection prevention should be prioritized for proper delivery of healthcare. Individuals in charge of ambulatory care facility are required to make sure that there is a sufficient and highly knowledgeable and qualified staff for developing and maintaining infection prevention and occupational health.
To prevent infections during care, the hospital took a proactive approach and adapted new initiatives to reduce the prevalence and incidence of infections during care in the hospital. The initiatives were simultaneously and evident from one of the staff’s response; this simultaneous introduction resulted into confusion among nursing staff members especially those involved in ambulatory care. For clarification of these initiatives, the nursing staff and management team recommended that a review course should be provided as a means of continuous education for the ambulatory care nurses to reduce the incidence of infections.
Therefore, this certification review course is designed and aimed all nursing staff members who wish to refresh and improve their knowledge on wounds and how to treat and manage wounds. The topics to be covered will include infection prevention program and plan, infection prevention oversight, patient scheduling, triage and surveillance, frequency of screening, and infection prevention triage. In addition, the course will include training on triage area, post discharge surveillance, occupational health issues, a transmission-based precautions/isolation, environmental decontamination, and surgery. This will be a one day course that will comprise 5 hours of classroom instruction.
Rationale
The introduction of the four initiatives by the hospital has been followed by an opposite consequence of the initiatives that is there is a rise in the incidence of infections, and this has been prominently in ambulatory care patients. This has been attributed to the form on "ambush" implementation of these initiatives among the nursing staff. This indicates the need for nurses in ambulatory care and other surgical areas to have clarification of the initiatives that aim at providing better care for patients and improving treatment outcomes in such units. Proper wound classification means proper treatment and management approaches by the nursing the results into better treatment outcomes especially for outpatient cases CITATION CDC11 \l 1033 (CDC, 2011).
APIC has provided guidelines that are valuable in ensuring a reduction in the incidence of infections in ambulatory care settings. Therefore, this 5-hour course will cover the APIC recommendations for infection reduction in ambulatory care within the hospital
Purpose
The program’s purpose is to equip ambulatory care nurses in the surgical with knowledge on the wound classification approach. This will provide the required skill level for caring for wounds. This will in turn improve ambulatory care and hence reduce the incidence of infections within the hospital.
Audience
Ambulatory care involves both the surgical doctors and also the nurses and infectious disease department for infection prevention. Thi...