Keeping nursing curricula at speed with health care practice
In health care today, everything is measured to "assure quality, quality improvement, and quality assurance," according to Judy Honig, EdD, DNP, CPNP, professor of clinical nursing and associate dean of student affairs in the School of Nursing at Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan.
In fact, entire departments in hospitals have been created solely to measure these indicators and create action plans to continually modify the delivery of health care in a better way.
Due to the plethora of regulatory agencies in the US, documentation has become the golden rule for the measurement of success. With the prevalence of the Internet and the ability of the patient to obtain instant information about health care providers and facilities, the expectation level has been raised to a higher level in the delivery of health care.
Nursing programs have to keep pace with all the advances in health care, and the situation is extremely fluid, changing week by week. For any nurses, PAs, physicians, therapists, or others who currently work in health care, it is difficult to keep up with the volume of e-mail alerting one of policy changes and updates to patient goals and interventions.
Evidence-based practice
The focus in nursing curricula is on evidence-based practice, which is one of the best ways to keep pace in the delivery of health care. Rona F. Levin, RN, PhD, professor and chairperson of the graduate department at Pace University's Lienhard School of Nursing in New York City, explains that emphasis is placed in "learning how to ask clinical questions and find the best evidence to answer those questions." She continues, stating that evidence-based practice "has also been integrated into clinical courses." It is ongoing evolving process in the nursing curriculum at Pace.
Evidence-based practice combines evidence obtained from research and integrates this with clinical guidelines and clinical expertise. The process includes:
- Formulating a well-built question
- Identifying articles and other evidence-based resources that answer the question
- Critically appraising the evidence to assess its validity
- Applying the evidence
- Re-evaluating the application of evidence and areas for improvement
How some programs are keeping pace
The Loyola University New Orleans School of Nursing recently revised its nursing curricula for the fall of 2010, by developing new courses such as Introduction to Health Care Delivery Systems and Policy and Information Management and Patient Care Technology. They also revised several existing courses, including Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice and Nursing Leadership and Promotion of Quality Care and Patient Safety. This program also utilizes a distance learning format, which gives nursing students flexibility, another way to recruit students to the nursing field.
Chatham University's doctoral nursing program focuses on the "use of evidence-based practice in health care delivery systems."
Minerva Gutman, RN, EdD, NP, Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University's Henry P. Becton School of Nursing and Allied Health in Teaneck, N.J., states that health care reform will have many changes and the nursing curricula will develop so nurses can learn how to inform patients about the changes. She also explains "we evaluate our curriculum once a year to see if we are up-to-date with current issues or current developments."
