Standards Of Competent Performance

Critical thinking is a term you will often here in regards to nursing education and the ability to be a successful nurse. Critical thinking is one of the most important skills of a nurse. Nurses must be able to constantly asses and analyze situations in order to prioritize what is the most important task to accomplish next. This is an ever changing situation in health care and especially in the Intensive Care Units.

It is essential as a Registered Nurse and nursing student to ensure that a comprehensive safe and quality of practice is achieved, resulting in goals and outcomes being met positively improving the nursing needs of people. This standard is important to my scope of practice, as being a nursing student it is for me to ensure goals and outcomes are being achieved to ensure the safety and wellness to those I am caring for.

In the article “What Do Nurses Really Do?”, Suzanne Gordon explores what nurses truly do. She concludes that nurses “save lives, prevent complications, prevent suffering, and save money” (Gordon 2006). Nurses provide care for their patients in the physical and emotional sense. Emotionally caring for a patient and being sensitive to his or her needs result from interacting with patients while performing the skills and using the knowledge that nurses learned in school. Nurses grow in their skills, knowledge, and attitudes through practice. Quality and safety education for nursing incorporates competencies that all nurses must use in their practice. These nursing competencies include evidence-based nursing practice, quality improvement, safety, teamwork and collaboration, patient-centered care, and informatics.

Nursing is not just a collection of tasks. To provide safe and effective care to the clients, nurses must integrate knowledge, skills and attitudes to make sound judgement and decisions. This essay describes some of the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes of nursing and discusses why they are essential attributes of a competent nurse.

The second category of provisions relates to the nurse’s responsibility to maintain their own proficiency and health environments, delegate appropriately, preserve integrity, and keep their practice and competence current. It is crucial that nurses are proficient and maintain competency in order to deliver high quality care to patients. "The virtue of professional competence calls for continual professional growth and a commitment to lifelong learning. You must practice nursing that’s evidence-based, be knowledgeable about the scope and standards of nursing practice, and have the necessary skills to perform nursing tasks effectively” [ (Lachman, 2008, p. 44) ].

The newly qualified nurse is in an especially good position to provide excellent patient care. Having only recently left education and training, the most up-to-date evidence regarding best practice should be fresh in the newly qualified nurse’s mind. However, what knowledge the newly qualified nurse possesses in theory, they lack in experience.

The CNO outlined professional standards for nurses to comply with. The seven that are outlined are accountability, continuing competence, ethics, knowledge, knowledge application, leadership, and relationships. “A standard is an authoritative statement that sets out the legal and professional basis of nursing practice” (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2009, p. 3). Although each standard has different meaning, they all work together in order to provide the best possible patient care.

Mary considers “Competencies for registered nurses” is affecting her career the most. It helps her to maintain the high standards as a nurse. This document has been implemented by Nursing Council of New Zealand (NCNZ) to ensure the on-going education and compliance with standards for nursing care. It consists of four main parts. They are competences in professional responsibility, management of nursing care, interpersonal relationships and interprofessional care and quality improvement. It requires ability to show knowledge and judgment, and being responsible for own actions and decisions, while assuring safety of the patients, their independence and quality of life and health. Also it requires competences in client assessment and managing the care. The clients care should be sensitive to his/her needs. It is supported by nursing knowledge and evidence based research. Besides to comply with “Competences for registered nurses” the patient care should be cultural sensitive (Nursing Council of New Zealand, 2007). Every 3

Part of the QA program is the practice standards which include the competencies for entry-level registered nursing practice. Competency is described as “the knowledge, skill, ability and judgment required for safe and ethical nursing practice” (CNO, 2014, p. 4). The purpose of these competencies is to protect the public, can be a reference during practice, registration and membership requirements, legal reference, public information, and continuing competence (CNO, 2014). One competency that relates to my practice issue will be explored later on in the paper.

There has been a lot of talk about critical thinking during my four years of nursing school, with an array of different meaning and explanation; some was even unfathomable and baffling. Not so long ago, during my early years as a novice nurse, I didn’t pay much attention to the word, critical thinking. From where I used to work, decision making skills of nurses do not have a strong foundation. Every time there was a problem regarding patient care, it was immediately referred to the attending physician and then I would just carry out orders without sometimes thinking it through. I was a task-worker who simply carried out doctors’ orders and followed a fixed set of rules. That is how I practiced before, reckless and impulsive. I never rethink and reconsider decisions made by doctors. I never admit to a lack of knowledge. I was too proud of myself .Luckily, it didn’t cost any patient lives but it could have. I wasn’t thinking and acting like a professional nurse. To think like a nurse requires that to learn the content of nursing; the ideas, concepts and theories of nursing and develop intellectual capacities and skills so that we become disciplined, self-directed, critical thinkers (Heaslip, 1993) ¬ a realization that I just have found out recently. My perspective about critical thinking change immensely while taking this course. Not only because it covered different aspects of critical thinking but also

As a nurse I will use my knowledge of critical thinking skills with in the nursing process: assessment, analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Furthermore as a member of the nursing profession, I will assume accountability and responsibility for the quality of nursing care that I provide to clients, act as an advocate to promote quality health care for all clients, and take part in activities that promote the development and practice of professional nursing.

To have a successful career in nursing one must have certain skills and abilities. A nurse must always be looking for ways to help her patients. Critical thinking is important because sometimes a nurse must make quick decisions that may benefit or harm the patient. Medical tools are always used while on the job and a nurse must know what these tools are and how to operate each one. A nurse must also know what tool is best needed for a certain patient when trying to make them better.

The standards of practice describe a competent level of nursing care as exhibited by the critical thinking model known as the nursing process. This practice includes the areas of assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation. The nursing process includes significant actions taken by registered nurses (RN) and forms the foundation of the nurse’s decision-making (“American Nurses Association,” 2010).

Furthermore, licensing and accreditation standards must be heightened to insure the quality of the nurses that enter the workforce. Certifying organizations must therefore mandate the proper demonstration of core competencies and skills prior to endowing students with the nursing title. The nursing profession, according to the IOM report, must undergo fundamental changes within the overall education of nurses. In many respects the basic

The Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competencies (NOF Core Competencies) were selected to show the correlation of competency based education and practice partnership. This is being done nationwide so new student nurses would be more prepared with critical thinking and competent learned skills during clinicals. It encourages many nurses to continue their education with some becoming Doctors of Nursing, Nurse Practitioners’, Educators, Managers, and many more specialties.