Gap Analysis In Nursing Education

Programs

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Table of Contents

Introduction. 3

Discussion. 3

Conclusion. 5

Reference list 7

Introduction

The role of nurses in the present healthcare system is very crucial nowadays. Hence, the leadership development programmes are gaining much importance in the present scenario. The leaders in this profession are mostly responsible for staff satisfaction, outcomes of the patients and most importantly the fiscal status of the majority of the health care providing organisations. There is a growing shortage of the number of nurses and this problem has become severe due to the onset of the Covid19 pandemic. As a result, the role of nurses who are the frontlines has gained much importance in modern times. So, a guided course that is action leading has been designed. These courses focussed on both the experimental learning as well as the core knowledge.

Discussion

The competency in leadership is necessary throughout nursing. Though there are many types of formal, educational and systematic gaps can be identified. The learners of nursing have difficulty in understanding leadership that is integral to education as well as practice which is an educational gap. A framework that should be consistent for nursing leadership curricula and education programmes, an evidence base and strong scholarship are limited. In order to formulate an integrated model for leadership development for nursing students who have not got licence yet this recognizes leadership as a basic skill for practice of nursing and also promotes development of education scholarship for nursing leadership (Miles & Scott, 2019). The Development Model of Nursing Leadership is a conceptual road map that offers a structure for facilitating development of leadership within the nursing students who are prelicensure, promotes ability of students to internalize capacity of leadership and apply skills of leadership between entry and practice (Miles & Scott, 2019). Nurses usually prefer managers who are emotionally intelligent, facilitative and participative. The style of leadership contributes to lower stress, team cohesion, self efficiency and higher empowerment. Leadership predicts the outcome quality in a particular setting of health care. The leadership in the nursing profession concerns creating a care vision, in which treatments of patients are done with respect and dignity at every time, a designed system for meeting the needs of the individuals and the care given by nurses is respected and valued. However, the lack of knowledge may be considered to be a crucial factor that may affect negatively to both patient outcome and nurse.

Figure 1: Nursing leadership

Source: (Miles & Scott, 2019)

There is some knowledge which is important for nursing discipline development which has been lacking in few students which is a systematic gap. These are know what, know why, know how, pragmatic knowledge and social knowledge (Safazadeh et al., 2018). Know what factual knowledge is. Know why contextual knowledge is. Know how procedural knowledge is. There are knowledge gaps on various levels. There are gaps in individual levels or gap in the general level as well. There may be gaps in the nursing discipline. These gaps are the results of the inability of the nurses in integrating knowledge. Again, the nurses may not have the opportunity to attend different development programmes at a professional level. There is a vast example of the slow progress as well as considerable barriers for the advancement of women in leadership in healthcare. Research on effective interventions to facilitate change is lacking. The representation of women in healthcare leadership is very low but organisational strategies that have impact, policies and practices that can advance careers of women are limited (Mousa et al., 2021). Cognitive skills are subdivided into professional know-how, self-regulation as well as grasping the bigger context. Interpersonal skills contain selling and networking the services, which deals with communicating clearly and contextual resistance. Business skills are grouped into managing and mitigating risk, financial, operations management and marketing. Strategic skills are related to knowledge of starting a business. However, business mindedness is not integrated readily into collective identity which in turn results in an exclusion of this subject from nursing leadership curricula. Nurses must be taught entrepreneurial concepts during the first phase of training and a further specialization for those who consider a business career.

Again clinical leadership is considered to have a targeted role in the development of nurse leaders and executives and if it is not present then it is a formal gap. As there is a need for clinical leaders the education of nurses for leadership is much needed. There are increased cuts in the funding of healthcare and massive financial constraints. As a result, Nurse Managers have become financially conscious and to provide quality care by cutting costs as well as reducing expenditure. This requires knowledge of financial management. However, the knowledge’s of the nurse leaders are very limited. Nurse leaders participate in the activities of financial management within the hospitals. Eight main results may arise. They are financial planning, monitoring, decision making, control, and insufficient financial management, educational financial management preparation in nursing leadership programmes, training and guidance for financial management role and competency in financial management needs. Nurse Managers do not have the necessary knowledge, skills and competencies to work as leaders and require some additional skills, knowledge and training. A framework that is competent should be developed for improvement in the competencies in financial management of Nurse Managers (Naranjee, Sibiya, & Ngxongo, 2019). It can be said that there is a positive correlation between professional development of leadership of nurses and their job satisfaction (Hariyati & Safril, 2018). In spite of the need there are still some limitations in the comprehensive programmes of leadership development. There are limited opportunities for leadership development in the curricula.

Conclusion

A competency in nursing leadership is much needed. Students may have difficulty in understanding what leadership is as integral to training and practice. There is a lack of consistent nursing leadership framework, an evidence base and strong scholarship. The Nursing Leadership curricula is a conceptual map that offers a structure to help leadership development for pre-licensed licensure students of nursing, promoting the ability of students to internalize capacity of leadership and apply the skills of leadership from entry to practice. A formal training in leadership development is accepted as much desirable for nurses and other health care leaders. The leadership development should begin at the early stage of the nursing career. An ideal curriculum for leadership development must include a basic curriculum of concepts of health care that are comprehensive, general, and presented with diverse methodologies.

Reference list

Hariyati, R. T. S., & Safril, S. (2018). The relationship between nurses’ job satisfaction and continuing professional development. Enfermeria clinica, 28, 144-148. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1130-8621(18)30055-X

Miles, J. M., & Scott, E. S. (2019). A new leadership development model for nursing education. Journal of Professional Nursing, 35(1), 5-11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2018.09.009

Mousa, M., Boyle, J., Skouteris, H., Mullins, A. K., Currie, G., Riach, K., & Teede, H. J. (2021). Advancing women in healthcare leadership: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of multi-sector evidence on organisational interventions. EClinicalMedicine, 39, 101084. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101084

Naranjee, N., Sibiya, M. N., & Ngxongo, T. S. P. (2019). Development of a financial management competency framework for Nurse Managers in public health care organisations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences, 11, 100154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2019.100154

Safazadeh, S., Irajpour, A., Alimohammadi, N., & Haghani, F. (2018). Exploring the reasons for theory-practice gap in emergency nursing education: A qualitative research. Journal of education and health promotion, 7. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2Fjehp.jehp_25_18