Improving the quality of clinical placements: a practice development approach


Inherent in the nurses’ professional role is the requirement to support the learning and development of students and colleagues. Since 2002, due to projected workforce shortages of nurses and subsequent increase in the number of undergraduate students undertaking nursing and going on professional experience, has almost doubled.

Courtney-Pratt et al (2015) describe the process of effecting improvement through a  practice development approach. The  three-step process comprised of (1) an education session related to supervision support (2) distribution of surveys to students and staff following their healthcare experiences and then (3) stakeholders participating in workshops to consider the findings of the surveys, their experiences,  local situation and discussion surrounding opportunities for change or improvement. This collaborative engagement provided valuable insights that gave participants information about what they were doing well regarding preceptorship that was of benefit to clinicians and students.

Action planning within the workshop group enabled focus on the areas where improvement could be undertaken. Feedback from participants increased awareness about areas for change for improving experiences for students and for staff, including ideas for developing resources and supporting professional experience. There was ongoing responsibility for actioning their plans and encouragement for sustaining the feedback, analysis and improvement cycle. One of the main findings was the acknowledgement of the importance of receiving feedback from students about their placement experiences that could be incorporated into future planning. The authors concluded that timely feedback received about performance as supervisors is often limited, and a practice development approach provides an opportunity for interaction, share experiences and collaboratively develop plans for future improvement to support students and staff.  This model can be used in a range of healthcare settings to elicit information that can be used to support quality clinical placements.

If you have any comments or suggestions regarding this approach, you are welcome to post them here.  Please join us @PEPCommunity.

 

Comments

This post doesn't have any comments

Leave a Comment

 




  Back to all posts