Preparing new nurses to improve the systems in which they work: A matter of degree or skillset?

Abstract

<p>The multitude of players, rules, and economic factors involved in organizing and delivering healthcare in the US today requires a highly skilled workforce, who can go above and beyond excellence at the practitioner level by acting as change agents to continuously improve the systems in which they work. Early acquisition of quality and safety competencies, along with leadership and inter-professional collaboration, systems thinking, and health economics are essential for preparing new nurses for the demands of their future jobs. Using these competency domains as a framework for evaluation, the purpose of this descriptive study was to examine program coordinators&rsquo; assessments by comparing them across all types of nursing programs. Seventy-nine pre-licensure nursing program coordinators in California completed an electronic evaluation survey for an overall return rate of 55 percent. In general, all domains examined, with the exception of health economics, had relatively high levels of competency in all pre-licensure programs according to program coordinators assessments. Nevertheless, there were gaps in students&rsquo; skills across the different programs that can inform continuous improvement efforts in pre-licensure nursing education. As this study was the first to report on competency level assessments for domains that go beyond quality and safety such as health economics, future studies offering practical strategies to carve out space in the nursing curricula and progressively integrate these competencies throughout the different types of pre-licensure programs are needed.</p>