IOM Core Competencies
The Committee of Institute of Medicine incorporates the core competencies that are required to be acquired by the nursing professionals in order to enhance the quality of care. The current paper aims to enlighten the core competencies by the IOM in order to develop the SMART goals and direct towards the action plan for the effective execution of the objectives. The selected IOM core competencies are as follows:
“To contribute in the team work by means of integrating the observations, bodies of expertise, spheres of decision making in order to coordinate, communicate and collaborate with one another so that care for a patient or a group of patients can be optimized in an effective manner (IOM, 2005, p. 54). ”
The above IOM competencies are focused on developing the teamwork skills and being able to work in teams in such manner that the quality of care is enhanced. Moreover, the communication skills, acute observational skills and decision making capability within the team are considered as essential to enhance the overall quality of care for the patients.
SMART Goal
The SMART goals provide a specific set of criteria that is objectified towards the personal development and enhanced performance. These goals are comprehended in the professional practices because they are easily understood by the individuals and provide the clear direction towards what is required to be done in order to accomplish these goals. The SMART goals address the specific task and indicate the measure of progress while being achievable and relevant to the individual’s environment and capabilities in a specific time (Willmer, 2007). In this paper, the SMART goal is driven from the discussed IOM competencies. The SMART goal is developed to provide career and learning direction to the newly appointed Registered Nurse Case Manager, who is personally objectified on enhancing his skills in order to become the strongest member of the team and provided a quality care. In this instance, the SMART goal is listed below:
“To acquire communication skills, acute observational skills and decision making capability to be a better team member, and enhance the quality of care for patients by 20%, by means of engaging in continuous learning and practice due to the prior nursing career, within next three months.
Specific: To acquire communication skills, acute observational skills and decision making capability to be a better team member.
Measurable: To enhance the quality of care of patients by 20%.
Attainable: To enhance these skills by continuous learning and practice.
Realistic: Prior nursing career.
Time-bound: within three months.
Discussion
The healthcare systems have gone through the dynamic changes since the last decade and the focus of providing nursing care has been initiated to be executed in teams in order to enhance the efficiency of the provision of adequate care to the patients. The processes involved in the patient care require interdepartmental communication and handoffs and these processes are considered time taking and delay the initiation of providing the required care to the patient. It is required that during the provision of care, the critical information about the patient is communicated among the team members, so that the patient’s desired health outcome will be clear among the nursing team and all the members will utilize their skills towards the achievement of the patient’s healthcare outcome (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
The patient care requires the prevalence of effective communication and collaboration in nursing teams so that the issues that may arise due to the misinterpretation of patient’s condition and information can be avoided. The patient’s healthcare outcomes are dependent on the efficiency of the assigned nurses, physicians and physiotherapists and hence, it is essential to ensure that all these entities possess the adequate and recent information about the patient’s condition so that better healthcare decisions can be made by the respective clinical professionals (Suter et al., 2009).
The prevalence of effective coordination among the team members ensure that the optimum quality of care is provided by all the nursing team members. It can also reduce the prevalence of medical errors that may arise due to the nurses’ lack of information due to the frequent patient handoffs and stressful working environment. It is evident that the lack of communication results in the medication errors, fatal falls and wrong-site surgeries, which eventually threatens the wellbeing of the patients and questions the quality of care provided by the nursing staff (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
The effective collaboration within the nursing teams can motivate the nursing professionals to incorporate the complementary roles and provide support to the tasks that are even assigned on an individual basis. It also enhances the nursing practitioner’s responsibility towards the effective problem solving under the situations that require the immediate patient care. Collaboration ensures that such conditions are addressed by the nursing teams so that the effective measures and steps can be taken into the account in an efficient manner and quality care be provided in a less duration of time due to the accountability of the complete team (Suter et al., 2009).
The prevalence of collaboration in the nursing teams can ensure that the adequate decisions are made to enhance the wellbeing of the patient in accordance with the mutual skillset and competency of the nursing team members. In this manner, the evident based research can be incorporated in the practice and optimum care plans can be developed for the patients that can address the patient’s concerns in an effective manner. Moreover, the effective implementation of these plans can also be ensured due to the increased competency of the nursing staff by their collaboration (Suter et al., 2009).
The collaboration in the interdisciplinary teams ensures that all the team members are well-aware about the strengths and weaknesses of team members and can utilize them in such manner that the overall quality of care is enhanced. It also leads towards the effective decision making and provides the team members with the opportunity to learn and practice their skills in group. The information related to the learning and practicing new skills can be shared within the team members and they can incorporate the mutual learning mechanism and knowledge sharing with their peers and team members in order to enhance their competencies (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
The decision making mechanism is also enhanced by the combined skillsets of the team members, in which the team members can engage in the acquisition of the detailed information from various sources. This information can be presented in the team meetings in a systematic manner and the decisions related to the healthcare objectives of the patients can be made in an effective manner. Moreover, the efficiency of the care plans can be monitored due to the acute observations incorporated by the numerous team members, which can eventually enhance the quality of patient care (McCabe & Timmins, 2013).
However, the nursing staff is not trained at the academic level to work in the collaborative teams and acquire the effective communication skills. In this manner, the acquisition of teamwork skills and communication skills takes place during the nursing practice, which eventually makes the nursing leaders accountable towards their team members’ performance in the teams. There are also certain culture barriers that restrict the nurses to communicate freely with their peers and team members but the effective integration of nurses with the cultural differences and their ability to address diversity, ensures that these differences are addressed in an effective manner (Suter et al., 2009).
The effective collaboration among team members ensures that the adequate information related to the patients’ concerns is provided to the assigned nurses and respective departments in an efficient manner. In this way, the delays in the provision of care is eliminated whereas, the patients’ condition and recovery rate is continuously communicated which eventually increases the quality of care. The medication errors are also reduced because the nursing staff is well-aware about the dosage and medicines that are being provided to the patient by any other nursing staff and hence, the wellbeing of the patients is addressed by the nursing staff in an effective manner (Willmer, 2007).
The communication skills, problem solving and decision making skills can be learnt by the nursing staff by means of the structured standard operating procedures. In this way, the nursing staff will be enlightened with the necessary protocols that are required to be addressed while communicating, decision making and problem solving and hence, the overall quality and standardization of the work related tasks will be ensured. The error rate will be reduced due to the prevalence of standard and mastery of skills and hence, the overall quality of care will be increased (Suter et al., 2009).
Action Plan
The action plan enlists the skills that are required to be learnt in the healthcare setting in order to ensure the effective contribution in the nursing teams and enhance the patient outcomes. The action plan enlightens the activities that are required to be incorporated and determines the time duration that is required to carry out the listed activities. The action plan to acquire the discussed SMART goal is illustrated below:
Therefore, it is estimated that the SMART goal will be accomplished within the duration of 2.6 months and hence, the overall quality of the patient care will be enhanced along with the effective career development of the nursing practitioners.
References
IOM. (2003). Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality. Washington DC: National Academics Press.
McCabe, C., & Timmins, F. (2013). Communication skills for nursing practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Suter, E., Arndt, J., Arthur, N., Parboosingh, J., Taylor, E., & Deutschlander, S. (2009). Role understanding and effective communication as core competencies for collaborative practice. Journal of interprofessional care.
Willmer, M. (2007). How nursing leadership and management interventions could facilitate the effective use of ICT by student nurses. Journal of nursing management, 15(2), 207-213.
