Avani Oke, Principal, KJ Somaiya College of Nursing, gives an insight on the need to prepare efficient nurses, who apart from theoretical and practical training, are also able to perform and act according to the situation of the client
Nurse education consists of theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals.
Why modern tools in nursing education?
In today’s contemporary society, the meaning of education has made various advances. Education does not mean rote learning but importance is placed on application of the knowledge. Education revolves around all-round development.
The expectations from educational institutes too have undergone changes. Students are not looking at educational institute as mere source of providing information but also want their higher level of thinking such as synthesising, analysing to be sharpened and motivated.
The other major change observed in the modern generation is their attraction towards newer technology.
If education does not cater to the needs of the students, it would lead to apathy for acquiring knowledge, loss of interest in studies and increase the drop out rate.
Thus, nursing which is an unique profession in the sense of preparation requires having a right balance of new and old methods to see that professionals are created who have 3 ‘H'(Head, Heart and hands).
Head: Refers to knowledge
Hands: Refer to the efficiency to be demonstrated while performing patient care.
Heart: Refers to the soft skills required while dealing with clients and relatives.
Modern tools for enhancing knowledge component
Earlier lectures and black boards were considered the most appropriate tools for providing information.
Modern educational tools aim to clarify the concepts realistically and emphatically, thus creating a strong base. The three main aspects of knowledge acquisition are teaching, learning and assessment.
Teaching: Tools that could be used to sustain the attention and are geared towards student’s interest are: videos, CD-ROM’s, Mobile applications, smart board.
Learning: The modern education aims to be student centered and individualistic. Learning of students varies with respect to their needs, interest, motivation and pace. The modern educational tools provide this cafeteria approach through on- line courses and modules, on-line journals, google classroom, flip classroom.
Assessment: The main principle of assessment should be to identify the level of knowledge a student has acquired and not on identifying the gray areas. The student should be made responsible for there own actions. This could be achieved by giving a limited amount of freedom to students, motivating their creativity and ensuring that assessment activity evaluates application and critical thinking ability of the students. The assessment activities need to stress on encouraging students to use more reference material and not rely only on textbooks. Newer assessment techniques to assess knowledge that are useful in nursing education are provision for on-line assignments, on-line test,on- line feedback.
Modern tools for enhancing nurse efficiency
Nursing is an art and science. A nurse cannot function if she has only knowledge of procedures but is unable to perform. Thus, to ensure that we create efficient nurses, the education should not be limited to demonstrations and re-demonstrations. There is a need to prepare nurses who are able to perform and act according to the situation of the client. This could be achieved through simulation laboratories, Exposure to OSCE (Observed structured Clinical examination).
The educational benefits of simulation in nursing education include the following:
- Deliberate practice with feedback
- Exposure to uncommon events
- Reproducibility
- Opportunity for assessment of learners
- The absence of risks to patients
The advantages of OSCE apart from its versatility and ever broadening scope are its objectivity, reproducibility, and easy recall. All students get examined on pre-determined criteria on same or similar clinical scenario or tasks with marks written down against those criteria thus enabling recall, teaching audit and determination of standards.
Tools for creating nurse with a heart
A nurse who is knowledgeable and efficient is incomplete if she is not prepared to deal and communicate with patients, relatives and other health team members. A nurse is expected to document, record and report her assessment and findings. Nurse performs roles of nurse advocate, counselor and has to coordinate activities at various levels. Thus, communication (verbal, non verbal and written) needs to be effective. Role -play, skits, debates, panel discussions and SBAR (Situation, background, assessment, recommendation) are tools to prepare nurses for effective communication.
The SBAR is a powerful tool that is used to improve the effectiveness of communication between individuals. It is easy to use and can help your staff learn the key components needed to send a complete message! Here are the key components of the SBAR:
Challenges in modern tools
The major constraints for modern educational technology is as follows:
- Finance
- Physical Infrastructure
- Lack of IT(Information technology) support
- Inadequate staffing
- Personal reasons: Barrier of teachers and learners towards using modern technology, disinterest of students towards self -study, apathy of teachers and students.
Nurse educators need to plan, organise, implement and evaluate the curriculum and make the changes with changing needs to ensure that education provided is permanent and updated.
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