Burgess_Week 4_Nursing Curriculum Development

Read \”Re conceptualizing Program Outcomes\” and \”Leveling EBP Content for Undergraduate Nursing Students\” for a better understanding of issues within curriculum development.

Select an issue within curriculum development that is of interest to you.

Write a paper of 1,000-1,250 words on the issue, discussing its affect and relevance to nursing, staff or patient education.

Why is this issue a problem at your place of employment?

What are your proposed strategies to resolve these issues?

Use at least three to five scholarly, peer-reviewed resources less than 5 years old in addition to the course materials. Make sure that you do not use the two sources given in this assignment.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.Burgess_Week 4_Nursing Curriculum Development

You are required to submit this assignment to Lopes Write. Refer to the Lopes Write Technical Support articles for assistance.

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Curriculum Development Issue Paper

Curriculum development is a critical aspect of nursing education, particularly the undergraduate degree program as it lays the foundation for nursing practice. The curriculum sets the pace for all learner experiences, providing direction for nurse educators and student nurses. Issues with the curriculum often impact healthcare organizations as they translate into practice issues. There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of information available to healthcare practitioners over the years. This increase has caused quite an uproar in nursing education and practice as well. The accessibility of vast information and the adoption of evidence-based practice has altered nursing practice standards (Pickering, 2017).  As a result, the nursing curriculum is forced to be dynamic to accommodate emerging problems and match technological advancement for better service provision. Healthcare organizations and nursing educators are forced to keep adjusting their systems and approaches to ensure better outcomes and performance.

Why is this issue a problem at VA Medical Center?

Staffing Shortages and Burnouts

Nurse educators must stay afloat with emerging technology to enable them sufficiently instruct student nurses with the available information. Baron (2017) emphasizes that educators require expertise knowledge and understanding of emerging problems in healthcare as they arise. The difficulty of delivering on this qualification has been on the rise owing to staff shortages. Therefore, graduate nurses are burdened with the need to extensively study the vast information accessible to them to enhance their clinical decision-making capacity. This burden leaves behind an exhausted set of healthcare providers, often incompetent following tedious work sessions and subsequent burnouts. Nurses at VA Medical Centers, for instance, are always exhausted and visibly overburdened since they are tasked with providing up to date nursing care to the vast majority of veterans.

Inadequacy in the Necessary Skills

The increased accessibility and availability of information also poses a challenge for nurse educators as they are barely in a position to teach nursing students the necessary skills adequately. This, in turn, produces half-baked graduate nurses who can barely tackle emerging clinical issues. Although the graduate nurses feel confident enough to take up their nursing practice roles, nurse leaders and preceptors agree that they lack the capacity to deliver services efficiently (Odongo, & Talbert-Slagle, 2019). Research attributes this phenomenon to the fact that graduate nurses only hold necessary information, but their clinical and problem skills are insufficient. Senior nurses are thus left with the responsibility to confer junior nurses with essential clinical skills while still taking care of the growing patient population. As a result, new graduates cannot obtain the mentoring and support they need. Patients are also less likely to receive adequate nursing care, thus leading to poor patient outcomes.

Up-to-date Competency Determination

With the increased accessibility and availability of information, the need to develop an up-to-date means to measure nurse competency is imminent. The undergraduate nursing degree program must design specific outcomes for the graduate level. Studies propose developing a concept-based curriculum, with a clear and stepwise approach that specifies on the impending clinical problems and the required nurse competencies (Baron, 2017). The curriculum must be tailored towards addressing the requisite competencies and assessing system achievements and inadequacies. However, the increased accessibility to vast information holds back the development of a tailor-made nursing curriculum since new clinical issues are always emerging. Thus, nurse educators have to make critical decisions on what to cover with student nurses during the four-year undergraduate program. Thus, the accessibility and dynamic nature of the nursing field have made it difficult to assess nurse competency, which explains the somewhat incompetent nurses at VA Medical Centers.Burgess_Week 4_Nursing Curriculum Development

Strategies towards Solving the Issue at hand

Inviting Healthcare Stakeholders on Board

Increasing accessibility to information continues to pose a challenge to the health system. The increasing accessibility and availability dictate the curriculum’s continuous expansion to accommodate emerging trends and useful technologies such as evidence-based practice. Including key stakeholders during curriculum development will thus go a long way in addressing emerging issues and expanding the curriculum. For instance, healthcare organizations will serve to provide insights into newly-adopted technologies and approaches and the essential skills the system requires of nurses. Allowing stakeholders in the healthcare sector to participate in curriculum development also ensures that nurse educators and student nurses do not miss out on crucial emerging issues and newly developed useful technology. This strategy enables the nursing curriculum’s contextualization, conferring relevance and feasibility in nursing education and the profession in general.

Since nurses constitute the most significant percentage of healthcare providers in the US, involving stakeholders in the sector, ensures inclusivity and efficiency. This step enables the nursing curriculum to be developed to enhance nurse competency while catering to the immediate environment’s needs. An inclusive and efficient curriculum guarantees evidence-based learning and ultimately, nursing practice (Pickering, 2017). This approach towards curriculum development pays attention to various areas, including nursing education, nursing practice, teaching and learning, and patients’ response to modern clinical models. Nursing colleges can also be incorporated into the health system, presenting them with an opportunity to stay abreast on emerging issues and technologies. Besides, nursing educators and students will acquire upfront experience in emerging clinical issues and requisite problem-solving skills. Nursing schools will thus be better-placed to update their practice standards and nurse competencies as time goes.

College-Hospital Collaboration

Staffing shortages have been a key contribution to modern problems in nursing education as well as practice. College-hospital collaborations will come in handy in ensuring access to sufficiently trained medical personnel since most if not all nursing graduates will get placements either at the partner institutions or at least get referrals (Odongo, & Talbert-Slagle, 2019). Healthcare organizations linking up with nursing schools will undoubtedly ease the transition from nursing education to nursing practice while reducing senior nurses’ burden. Besides increasing nurses’ supply, college-hospital collaborations help in polishing skills for both student nurses and educators. The hospital setting prepares the student nurses for their careers by equipping them with all the necessary skills, thus easing nursing educators’ load.Burgess_Week 4_Nursing Curriculum Development

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Conclusion

Curriculum development continues to be a crucial part of nursing education. The ever-changing dynamics in the field of nursing necessitate continuous curriculum development to accommodate emerging issues and technology. Therefore, nursing schools are tasked with producing competent nurses to ensure efficiency in healthcare while enhancing system performance and patient outcomes. Accessibility and availability of vast information thus pose a challenge to nursing curriculum development. With so much information available to nurses, healthcare providers have to conduct extensive research to boost their knowledge and enhance their clinical decision-making capacity. As such, nurses at VA Medical Center are often drained and suffering from burnouts. Also, nurse educators are always at crossroads on what to teach and what not to pass on to student nurses as they can only teach so much. Increasing nurse staffing and college-hospital collaborations will go a long way in solving the accessibility and availability of information.

References

Baron, K. A. (2017). Changing to concept-based curricula: The process for nurse educators. The open nursing journal, 11, 277.

Odongo, C. O., & Talbert-Slagle, K. (2019). Training the next generation of Africa’s doctors: why medical schools should embrace the team-based learning pedagogy. BMC medical education, 19(1), 1-8.

Pickering, J. D. (2017). Developing the evidence-base to support the integration of technology-enhanced learning in healthcare education. Medical Science Educator, 27(4), 903-905. Burgess_Week 4_Nursing Curriculum Development