Last Updated on November 21, 2022 by Admin
Benchmark – Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
Students maintained and submitted weekly reflective narratives throughout the course to explore the personal knowledge and skills gained throughout this course. This assignment combines those entries into one course-long reflective journal that integrates leadership and inquiry into current practice as it applies to the Professional Capstone and Practicum course.
This final submission should also outline what students have discovered about their professional practice, personal strengths and weaknesses that surfaced during the process, additional resources and abilities that could be introduced to a given situation to influence optimal outcomes, and, finally, how the student met the competencies aligned to this course.
The final journal should address a variable combination of the following, while incorporating your specific clinical practice experiences:
- New practice approaches
- Interprofessional collaboration
- Health care delivery and clinical systems
- Ethical considerations in health care
- Practices of culturally sensitive care
- Ensuring the integrity of human dignity in the care of all patients
- Population health concerns
- The role of technology in improving health care outcomes
- Health policy
- Leadership and economic models
- Health disparities
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance.
Expert Answer and Explanation
Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
This paper highlights a collection of all reflective journals from the experiences gained throughout this course. The journal is summarized as follows.
New Practice Approaches
Nursing practice is based on continuous collection and application of current evidence to inform new practice approaches. Throughout this course, I got to understand the relevance of the application of evidence-based methodologies to inform new practice approaches. I also got to appreciate the influence of new health care technology in directing new practice approaches (Mamlin & Tierney, 2016). The continuous emergence of new approaches to nursing practice creates an increasing need for the development of research competencies at all levels to guarantee the safety and quality of care given to patients.
Interprofessional Collaboration
Throughout the course, I have also come to appreciate the value of interprofessional collaboration. Interprofessional collaboration entails pulling of resources, including skills and competencies from health care providers from different professionals to achieve a better outcome for patients. I noticed that interprofessional collaboration is one of the effective antidotes to the ailing shortage of health care personnel. It is also an important element in the delivery of patient-centered care and should be embraced as a core component that forms an organizational culture.
Health Care Delivery and Clinical Systems
Healthcare delivery systems are like a living organism that changes and adapts to the external environment. The health care delivery system is made up of the different health care organizations, the personnel, the patients, and other stakeholders who interact with the health care system. In this course, I got to understand that to make changes in the delivery system, it is important to recognize the different stakeholders and balance their interest to ensure that better patient and organizational outcomes are achieved.
Ethical Considerations in Health Care
Nursing practice is based on ethical principles and considerations. Ethical principles are what dictate the conduct of nurses when delivering care to patients. They also detail how nursing research is supposed to be conducted. Adhering to ethical principles is very important in protecting the rights and interests of both patients and care providers and, by extension, also assists in the advancement of nursing research (Heale & Shorten, 2017). I got to understand that by adhering to ethical considerations, we elevate the level of confidence displayed by patients towards the health care system.
Practices of Culturally Sensitive Care
The patients we serve daily come from different socio-cultural backgrounds, and how we tend to them affects their level of satisfaction and perception of health care delivery. Culturally sensitive care entails the delivery of care in a manner that is responsive to the cultural beliefs of patients. In this course, I managed to learn some of the ways I can improve my level of cultural competence. One of the ways is to use organizational diversity as a platform to learn the various cultures and integrate them into patient care. This is one of the areas that I think will be key to the advancement of my future nursing practice.
Ensuring the Integrity of Human Dignity in the Care of all Patients
Patients are supposed to be handled in a manner that upholds their dignity. This is one way of ensuring that we give satisfactory care other than being a right to the patient. Nurses are supposed to conduct themselves professionally to ensure that the integrity of the patient’s dignity is guaranteed (Raee et al., 2017). In this course, I managed to learn my role in advocating for a safe environment that upholds patient dignity. I also got to understand some of the aspects that are easily overlooked, which could affect care delivery in a manner that ensures the integrity of human dignity is protected,
Population Health Concerns
One of the ways of bettering the health care system is by addressing the various population health concerns. Currently, amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, there are various issues that are now coming to the fore that have been ailing the health care system. For example, the shortage of health care personnel. This calls for an increase in resource allocation in the health care spectrum to meet the health care needs of the population. Likewise, the pandemic has proven that preventive approaches are the best option in dealing with the diverse health issues affecting our community. Through this course, specifically through my capstone, I managed to learn how one can establish an effective preventive initiative that focuses on specific health issues affecting the community.
The Role of Technology in Improving Health Care Outcomes
Technology is among the driving factors influencing change in health care. The use of technology has greatly impacted the delivery of health care services. Using innovative technologies, for example, telehealth systems, access to health care has been made possible, especially in marginalized rural areas (Mamlin & Tierney, 2016). Similarly, technology has greatly influenced the quality of care by improving precision and efficiency in care delivery. With the increased role of technology in care delivery, I feel challenged to invest some time and resources in developing my technology skills and competencies to apply them effectively in my future practice.
Health Policy
In this course, I got to learn how nurses can actively participate in policymaking. To make substantive changes in the health care system, some of the changes need to emanate from a policy perspective. The call to have more nurses actively participate in policymaking is valid, given their numerical representation in the care delivery spectrum (Catton, 2019). I got to understand some of the strategies that can be applied to influence health policies, including lobbying and advocacy, through which we can safeguard the interests of the patients and nurses.
Leadership and Economic Models
Different types of leadership styles elicit different reactions from staff. This course provided an overview of different types of leadership, their traits and characteristics, and how they can be applied in an organizational context. From the course content, I found transformational leadership to be appealing to me based on the fact that is it change-oriented and focuses on the upward development of the subordinates, which I think is relevant in modern day organizations.
Health Disparities
The widening gap in health care disparities is one area that dents an image in our health care delivery system. There are various factors that can be linked to this trend, most of which are linked to socio-economic factors. However, there are measures that nurses and other health care workers can use to reduce disparities. In this course, I learned how to identify some of the causes of health disparities and how I can help to reduce the disparities, especially in marginalized communities. One of the ways that I found to be effective by employing innovative health care technologies, like remote patient monitoring systems, to improve access to care, especially in marginalized areas (Noah et al., 2018).
Reflection on My Professional Practice
From this course, I have come to understand some of my strengths and weaknesses that I need to focus on going forward. For example, one of my identified strengths was that I could easily collaborate with other health care professionals to achieve a given goal. One of my weaknesses was applying some of the advanced healthcare technologies to improve patient outcomes, especially in a community setting. This is an area I need to focus my resources and time on. I managed to achieve the competencies required in this course through the assignments, the capstone project that required extensive research to be conducted, and through course readings and lessons and sharing with my peers
References
Catton, H. (2019). International Council of Nurses: Putting nurses at the centre of the world’s policymaking has benefits for us all. International nursing review, 66(3), 299-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12546
Heale, R., & Shorten, A. (2017). Ethical context of nursing research. Evidence-based nursing, 20(1), 7-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2016-102514
Mamlin, B. W., & Tierney, W. M. (2016). The promise of information and communication technology in healthcare: extracting value from the chaos. The American journal of the medical sciences, 351(1), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjms.2015.10.015
Noah, B., Keller, M. S., Mosadeghi, S., Stein, L., Johl, S., Delshad, S., … & Spiegel, B. M. (2018). Impact of remote patient monitoring on clinical outcomes: an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. NPJ digital medicine, 1(1), 1-12.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-017-0002-4
Raee, Z., Abedi, H., & Shahriari, M. (2017). Nurses’ commitment to respecting patient dignity. Journal of education and health promotion, 6, 16. https://doi.org/10.4103/2277-9531.204743
Use Coupon Code: NEW30 to Get 30% OFF Your First Order
Answered Questions:
[ANSWERED] Identify a quality improvement opportunity in
[ANSWERED] Develop an interview questionnaire to be used in a family-focused functional assessment
[ANSWERED] Select a family, other than your own, and seek
ANSWERED! In this project you will select an organization or
[ANSWERED] What is the significance of the product lifecycle
ANSWERED! How can different types of attributions and
ANSWERED!! Lily is a 20-year-old student at
ANSWERED!! In 4 or 5 sentences describe the anatomy of the basic unit of the nervous system