Advancing Nursing Education and the Future of Nursing in Health Care

Advancing Nursing Education and the Future of Nursing in Health Care

Part 1. 

Advancing a degree while working improves the quality of expertise of the individual taking on further studies. The degree does not necessarily have to be a nursing degree for it to get better when advanced. Any type of career always gets better when advanced. In nursing and all medical related careers, advancing a degree is important in ensuring that the practitioners are always trained on the latest medical procedures and nursing practices. An advanced nursing career is important in improving the care given to patients. This is gained through being taught about how to handle new nursing and medical technology in patient care. An advanced degree in nursing also helps the nurse to make sound decisions on patient care (Grand Canyon University, 2016). This means that at no pint does patient care get jeopardized due to lack of knowledge. Generally, advancing a degree in nursing is important in adding to the knowledge that a nurse has about patient care and nursing practices. Studying always increases the experience that a nurse possesses. Knowledge has no end and that means no amount of study undertaken by the nurse will ever be enough. 

Nursing in health care requires that the nurse is trained and retrained regularly to ensure that the work they do is up to standard. Advancing a degree in nursing will ensure that the nurse has enough knowledge to share with the community. This means that the community around the nurse will also get to benefit from the knowledge that the nurse has acquired (Nursing Jobs, 2013). The nurse with additional degrees in the fields will always stand a chance of getting better positions in their career. Advancing a career in nursing will always be beneficial in one way or another. A nurse with advanced degrees will always have more confidence while at work and they will always handle patients better than they did with just one degree. Additionally, a nurse with an advanced degree has better practical raining and thus, can handle more delicate cases while dealing with patient care.

 A nurse who does not want to advance their career or whatever reason may need to be sensitized on the importance of advancing a nursing career. I would advise the nurse to consider changing the career if they do not wish to advance in the nursing field. This is because, a nurse who not passionate about advancing their knowledge in the field of nursing is likely to give patient care that is not adequate. Failure to advance their career would also mean that they have very little chances of getting promotions in the work place. At the end of the day, failure to advance a degree in nursing means that with time, the knowledge that they have will be irrelevant to the improved nursing practices. I would, therefore, advice the nurse to consider taking on a new career or consider changing their stand on not advancing their nursing degree in the future. This will ensure that the nurse will not at any point in the future endanger the life of the patients they should be caring for.

Part 2. 

The future of nursing is set to integrate technology fully into the patient care. The ability of the nurses to advance their education opens doors to innovation that makes it easy for nursing to have technology that is helpful and relevant to patient health care. According to Blais and Hayes, previously nurses had limited opportunities of advancing their degrees (Blais & Hayes, 2016). The change in the systems of hospitals operations affect nursing as well. The nurses today use their previous experiences to predict the future of nursing. This means that nursing is a profession where learning is not tied to studying alone but also ropes in the experiences of a nurse on the job. Nursing is also a profession that puts pressure on the nurses to work together with other health care workers to ensure that they deliver quality care to patients. The Institute of Medicine recommends that along with the nurses working hand in hand with other health care workers, there is need for more nurses to join the profession after rigorous training. Nurses also need to be presented with more opportunities of advancing their careers and degrees. Here is also need for the nursing profession to be exposed more research that can help formulate and evidence-based practice program that will incorporate systems of collecting data related to the collaboration of the various health care workers as well as the analysis of the same.

Evidence based practice can only be effective in the case where there is an active research program that feeds the program with information for operations to be effected. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that research is an important section in the future of nursing. The previous challenges research in nursing has faced are likely to be eliminated when the importance of having credible information on nursing in particular is established (Sciences Engineering Medicine, 2011). This will shift the previous practice where the nurses having been using research results from other medical disciplines to make decisions on nursing. The current energy that has been put in nursing to encourage advancing studies is likely to present the nursing profession with research opportunities and hence more accurate decisions on nursing issues. Patients will thus get better health care form the nurses who agree to advance their degrees in nursing in the future. There is also the possibility that nursing being well advanced and integrated with technology will reduce the pressure that other health departments have in dealing with health care cases.

Nursing as part of the medical health care system is important in caring for patients during admission and offering follow up care. This means that nurses need to keep advancing their studies and knowledge in order to ensure that the health care facilities are a safe haven for patients. Research in nursing fields will ensure that nurses can advance the quality of their services to patients and generally improve health care by connecting better with all the other health care departments (Zimmerman, Miner, & Zittel, 2010). This is important in ensuring that the nurse can get to contribute to the medical field in ways more than just dressing patient wounds and administering medicine as prescribed by the doctors. Nurses should be encouraged to advance their studies each time an opportunity arises. This ensure that at any given time, a nurse is working with the latest acquired knowledge. This ways, they give patients the best care they know how. 

References

Blais, K., & Hayes, J. S. (2016). Professional Nursing Practice: Concepts and Perspectives. Pearson.

Grand Canyon University. (2016, August 5). Why Advancing Your Bursing Education is Important. Retrieved from Grand Canyon University: blogs.gcu.edu/college-of-nursing-and-health-care-professions/advancing-nursing-education-important/

Nursing Jobs. (2013). Nursing Jobs. Retrieved from Advanced Education Critical To Nursing Success: www.nursingjobs.com/advanced-education-critical-to-nursing-success/?mobile=0

Sciences Engineering Medicine. (2011). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences.

Zimmerman, D. T., Miner, D. C., & Zittel, B. (2010). Advancing Education of Nurses: A Call for Action. Journal of Nursing Administration, 529-533.