Introduction
In the recent years, healthcare professionals especially nurses have been faced with numerous health challenges especially due to various changes in the healthcare demands and advancements in science and technology. As such, these challenges impede the delivery of quality as well as safe care to patients thereby resulting to poor outcomes among the users of healthcare services. For instance, the increase in incidences of chronic illness that include diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hypertension coupled with technological advancements like the use of EHR (electronic Health Systems) provide a huge challenge to nurses. This can be attributed to lack of the relevant skills, competencies and knowledge among the nurses to meet the changing health demands due to their level of preparation. In the light of this, the recently released IOM report and the implementation of the recommendations provided by the report is a great milestone that will change the face of nursing education as well as practice and enhance care delivery (Bleich, 2011). As such, this paper seeks to explore and describe the impacts of the IOM report particularly in regard to nursing education, practice and the role of nurse leaders.
Essentially, the IOM report emphasizes the need to ensure that nurses acquire higher level of training as well as education mainly by improving the systems of education (Bleich, 2011). In order to ensure that nurse achieve advanced training and education, it is essential to incorporates new approaches and technologies in the nursing curriculum. This shall ensure that nurses acquire the relevant competencies, skills and knowledge to effectively deal with the contemporary health challenges. Moreover, the report recommends that education systems should equip nurses with the relevant competencies including health policy, evidence-based practice, leadership, collaboration, and research as well as system improvement (Bleich, 2011). As such, this shall have a significant impact and transform nursing education through ensuring that nursing students are well equipped with the aforementioned competencies and ensure that they are properly equipped with the relevant knowledge to affectively deal with the challenges that they encounter during practice. Furthermore, the implementation of the report shall foster the incorporation of various technological advancements in nursing education whereby this shall equip the nursing students with the necessary skills to effectively utilize various technologies in handing the ever changing health needs. Additionally, the report shall foster research and development in nursing education and encourage nursing educators as well as students to engage in continuous research in order to come up with the relevant knowledge to effectively deal with the health problems (Sheetz, 2012).
On the other hand, implementation of the recommendations of the IOM report shall have a great impact in nursing practice especially in regard to enhancement of the delivery of nursing care. Firstly, the implementation of the report shall foster the delivery of quality nursing care by ensuring that nurses engage in continuous research and utilize research knowledge in care delivery. Secondly, implementation of the report shall foster the utilization of technology in provision of nursing care and enhance the patients’ outcomes thereby minimizing overutilization of resources especially those associated with prolonged length of stay in the hospitals. Moreover, the use of technologies shall enable nurses to provide care to more patients since the technologies minimize the nurse’s workload and overutilization of resources. More importantly, ensuring that nurse acquire higher training as well as education shall enable them to offer more services to patients such as assessing the patients’ conditions, ordering as well as evaluating tests thereby enhancing service delivery. Furthermore, equipping nurses with the relevant competencies and knowledge shall promote collaboration with the other care providers and use critical thinking in clinical decision making and thereby foster the provision of quality as well as safe nursing care to the patients (Sheetz, 2012).
Subsequently, effective collaboration among nurses shall promote job satisfaction among nurses and minimize nurse turnover thereby enhancing the delivery of nursing services and overall patient outcomes. Involvement of the nurses in continuous research shall promote the use of evidence-based practice and research knowledge in care provision. Thus, in order to effectively meet the stipulated goals of the report, I would engage in continuous research so as to acquire the relevant knowledge for care delivery and utilize evidence-based approaches in provision of care to patients. Moreover, I would advance my education in order to acquire the relevant knowledge and skills especially in regard to the use of technology that would enable me to provide care that effectively meets the health demands of the patients.
According to the IOM report, nurses are essentiality leaders and thus empowers them to undertake leadership responsibilities (Bleich, 2011). As such, this shall foster collaboration among nurses and sharing of ideas and enhance the decision making process and clinical judgment thereby enabling nurses to come up with better intervention strategies. More importantly, empowering nurses to assume leadership roles shall promote collaboration of nurses with various community agencies and subsequently improve primary care mainly by developing suitable interventions to prevent the chronic illness such as diabetes among the population (Fineberg & Lavizzo-Mourey, 2013).
Overall, the implementation of the various recommendations stipulated in the IOM report shall change the face of nursing and improve the quality of nursing care thereby resulting to better outcomes among the users of healthcare services.
References
Bleich, M. R. (2011). IOM report, the future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health: Milestones and challenges in expanding nursing science.Research in nursing & health, 34(3), 169-170.
Fineberg, H. V., &Lavizzo-Mourey, R. (2013). The future of nursing: A look back at the landmark IOM report.
Sheetz, A. H. (2012). What Are the Implications of the Institute of Medicine Report "The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health" for School Nursing Practice? NASN School Nurse, 27(6), 293-295. doi:10.1177/1942602x12458326
