Professional Development of Nursing Professionals Essay

In this day and age when medicine becomes more technological and industry driven, nursing needs to find its new role in the rapidly transforming healthcare system. In 2010 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published proposals about remodeling of nursing in the U.S. – â€Å"The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.† This report points out to the need for changes in education, expanding practice, and demonstrating leadership in nursing. This modification will have a strong effect on the nursing in future and will contribute to changes of scope and standards of practice. Impact of the IOM Report on Nursing Education In regards to nursing education IOM report proclaim, â€Å"nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression.† (IOM Report, 2010). Today healthcare system is advancing rapidly and requires from all caregivers to improve their knowledge and specialization. The training and education that was given in the past to the nurses does not satisfy the demands of modern days and need to changed dramatically to allow them to keep up with rapidly changing scope of todays medicine. Nowadays, ever-growing complexity of patients demands from nurses to achieve a higher level of education in order to deliver a higher-quality patient care. To achieve this goal nursing schools have to develop new educational model, that provide competencies in decision making, quality improvement, systematic thinking, and team leadership. Another recommendation that IOM repot promotes to raise the proportion of BSN graduates among of the nurses to 80% by the end of 2020 (IOM, 2010). An increase in the percentage of nurses with a bachelor degree would help to manage a challenging and increasingly diverse healthcare environment. Impact of the IOM Report on Practice, Particularly in Primary care Nowadays, the health care system starts to focus on the new ways to provide patient-centered care by delivering more primary care and working on education of communities by promoting disease prevention and healthy lifestyles. Nurses now qualified to provide these services, since they have enough scientific knowledge and training. Regrettably, however this welcomed change is hindered by various restrictions coming from outdated policies and rules. These restrictions prevent nurses to deliver services to the patient and community in the full capacity. The IOM report advice to redesign the roles of nurses to satisfy the need for improved and safe service to the public. The report also advised to revise the outdated standards of practice and eliminate the obstacles to maximize the contribution to the community that nurses can make. Impact of the IOM Report on Nursing Role as a Leader Public is not used to seeing the nurse as a leader, mostly because of historical and rather stereotyped role of a nurse as a physician extender. However, in a constantly changing climate of a healthcare reform and increasing power of entities such as insurance companies, nurses cannot stay passive any longer if they want to continue to be relevant. â€Å"Because nurses have regular and close proximity to patients and scientific understanding of care processes across the continuum of care, they have a unique ability to act as partners with other health professionals and to lead in the improvement and redesign of the health care system and its many practice environments, including hospitals, schools, homes.† states in IOM recommendation. A unique nurses role as a patient advocate combined with a stronger leadership role that they ought to embrace is indispensible in order to form new health care policies that put patient in the center of the discussion. Changing Your Practice to Meet the Goals of the IOM Report Another key point of IOM report is to promote a high level education in the nursing. I am working toward achieving my goal and receiving Bachelor degree in nursing. I’m an operating nurse with more than fifteen years of an experience. Over many years of my practice I have achieved a high level of skill in many different areas of my profession. Now looking back I have a renewed appreciation to all the nursing educators that trained me so well and equipped me with tools to strife for continued self-improvement. I feel that now is my turn to pass on the torch and make sure that the future generation of nurses with rip from my experience and knowledge. Current concerning trend in the nursing is an acute deficiency in experienced locally educated nurses. As stated by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing,† U.S. nursing schools turned away 78,089 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2013 due to an insufficient number of faculty,† (AACN, 2014). I fully intend to use my BSN education to embark on the difficult role as a nurse educator initially on my workplace and possibly later in a nursing academic institution In summary, an academic nursing education is an important evolution in my profession since it equips me with knowledge, skills and tools to continue to provide better patient care in safer environment, take part in shaping future health care policies and pass on my knowledge in an efficient way. References American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (2014). Nursing Faculty Shortage. Washington, DC Retrieved from: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-faculty-shortage Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM). (2010). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Retrieved from: http://iom.edu/Reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health.aspx