Professional Portfolio Paper

Professional Portfolio Paper

Professional Mission Statement

A1. Mission Statement: My mission is to become an oasis of hope for the patients in prisons by providing advanced nursing care and fighting for their rights and access to quality and safe healthcare services. The focus is on mental health, an area that has been neglected for a long time; hence high numbers of mentally ill in society with limited mental health services.

A1a. The mission statement will guide education direction and advancement. It will also help create objectives for my career growth and will thus keep me focused until I achieve my goals and objectives. The mission statement will be a source of motivation to achieve the set goals and objectives and will constantly remind me to keep on course.

Professional Summary

A2a. The project in C229 represented me as a learner and a healthcare provider. The observational experience represents me as a learner in various ways. The activities are graded and part of the professional experience required for the course completion. In addition, learners are expected to observe healthcare professionals perform roles before implementing them; thus, the observational experience presented me as a learner. In the process, I was given roles such as drug dilution and their collection, some of the roles of healthcare professionals.

The roles helped me understand the care delivery process and build confidence in handling patients. Healthcare providers are expected to portray interprofessional collaboration. The observational experience required collaboration with various healthcare professionals and thus presented me as a healthcare professional.

The primary focus was mental health, and I selected the topics carefully to span prevention, promotion, rehabilitation, and curative activities, fulfilling the role of a healthcare professional. The activities in these areas required my participation and attention to determine the areas’ consistency with materials learned in class, presenting me as a learner.

Filling the activities in the field experience helped me evaluate the learned material and served as a reminder and evidence that learning had taken place, thus presenting me as a student. The activities in the course thus presented me as a healthcare professional and a learner.

A2b. Assessing the community showed my passion for community health and promoting healthier populations. Some of my professional strengths are leadership and communication. The tasks in C229 involved much communication between me, the community, and the various healthcare professionals. The tasks also required coordination and leadership to enhance their success. I coordinated and provided timely communication for all activities, further showing and developing my professional strengths.

A2c. The challenges I faced were selecting the right institutions, communities, and departments to work within the limited time and seeking permission from the various professionals to observe them do their work. It was also challenging to balance work, field experiences, and assignments and manage all the coursework.

A2c1. Creating a schedule with specific and timed objectives helped me beat the sharp deadline and meet all my tasks without many problems. The personal discipline of ensuring I put effort into managing these tasks was also integral. I rewarded myself for completing significant tasks and performing well as a source of motivation.

A2d)

1. During the experience, I used written and oral communication and technology to communicate with the nurses and other relevant professionals. I also recorded all activities I performed and ensured they were reviewed and signed by the registered nurse.
2. I utilized learned knowledge and research to ensure the implementation of evidence-based care and challenged interventions by the nurses and other healthcare professionals that did not align with ethical principles and professional values, especially in the EBP task.
3. During the experience, I observed and participated in care delivery to patients of all ages and from various ethnic groups, including medication administration, patient assistance with activities of daily living, and patient education, with attention to culturally sensitive communication as held accountable by the NPA
4. Every course in the program provided assignments and tasks that expanded my knowledge and understanding in specific areas, and the information helped me work on other areas progressively.
5. The community field experience working with the mentally ill, patients in nursing homes, and the community members enhanced my compassion and the need to see their situation change and fewer patients suffer from the burden of mental health issues.
6. From the knowledge acquired from courses such as C820, I spearheaded the development of healthcare interventions leveraging interprofessional collaboration to promote health and improve the health outcomes of individuals, families, and the community.
7. I leveraged several healthcare professionals such as nurses, leaders, and nursing and healthcare informaticists to plan and implement the social media strategy, thus promoting and utilizing interprofessional collaboration.
8. Acknowledged the role of genetics and the importance of valuing human life by including the information in the community education content for better health outcomes. Mentally ill patients are still valuable, and mental illnesses should receive attention like any other illness.
9. During the experience, I utilized healthcare information systems to derive healthcare data for informing change and communicating with various professionals who were integral to promoting the success of the activities in the EBP and C468.
10. e) During the coursework, I was able to meet various roles. As a detective, I evaluated data in healthcare to determine gaps in care delivery, quality care, and safety. Determining the gaps and their causes is the first step in bridging them. I also observed case analysis in violence to determine areas that require attention. These observations drove research, fulfilling my role as a scientist. I researched various evidence-based interventions to reduce mental health cases, the effects of mental health, and their causes. Deriving scientific evidence from studies and reports helped further develop the problem and its interventions. In addition, I evaluated effective interventions: social media campaigns that would help manage adult mental health issues. The healing environment’s managers play various roles in communication, planning, budgeting, and staffing. As a manager, I determined the best communication methods, outlined the implementation steps, and delegated specific roles to professionals in implementing quality improvement initiatives.

A2f. The program has led to remarkable professional growth. I learned that health is holistic and curative health is not enough. Looking holistically at patients is an integral role of nurses. Healthcare problems require a root cause analysis, and the interventions to manage problems should focus on prevention, health promotion, curative, and rehabilitative health.

I also learned the environment’s overarching role in promoting individuals’ health. The program also taught me the importance of healthcare professionals in researching and implementing quality improvement initiatives for better workplaces and patient outcomes.

Quality and Safety

Quality care is vital to any professional. Inmates often have fatal illnesses, and a quality assessment and timely referral, aspects of quality care, can help prevent loss of life and facilitate early referral of patients with sophisticated care needs.

B1. The program changed my definition of quality and safety to include the aspect of family and community. Care interventions affect the patient, the family, and the community, and individuals represent the problem in the community. Care quality is thus the ability of care to meet the patients, family, and community needs adequately. Safety is related to care that prevents the patient, family, community, professionals, and the profession from harm because some interventions can end up harming them when attempting to manage the patient’s needs.

B1a. The program has helped develop a better understanding and application of quality and safety concepts. The program’s various tasks focused on promoting leadership and research, such as the EBP and the community field experience. The programs increased my knowledge and ability to distinguish quality care from poor quality care. The program also taught me how to plan and implement quality and safe care for patients.

B1b. The C489, EBP, and IHI certificates support my definition of quality care and patient safety

B1b1. The Institute of Healthcare Improvement certificate is a course that teaches nurses concepts of a quality acre and its implications. It teaches nurses how to apply quality and safety concepts to improve outcomes. The institution defines quality and safe care as care that meets the need of patients and prevents harm that would occur in meeting these needs.

The EBP helped further expand my understanding and apply these concepts to clinical practice. The leadership project also helped synthesize quality and safety as significant roles of nurse leaders. These artifacts shaped my understanding, definition, and implementation of quality and safety concepts.

2. The IHI certificate is essential to my nursing professional role. It will help show I participated and fulfilled the requirements in demonstrating proficiency in providing quality care and promoting better patient outcomes. The certificate will prove my proficiency in developing quality care interventions, promoting patient safety, and executing managerial roles. It will thus upvalue my degree’s quality and place me in a better position to secure nursing jobs.

Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-based practice is the backbone of patient care. Health and patient needs are dynamic hence the need for using evidence-based research to improve care. For example, as a nurse in inmate patient care settings, researching the best practices in drug administration is integral to ensuring the patients receive the best care interventions that meet their needs. Other interventions include researching the best patient assessment tools to ensure accurate diagnosis and patient management.

C1. My definition of evidence-based practice has not changed. The program has solidified my understanding of evidence-based practice. Interventions must be tested and approved for their use in healthcare. In addition, the interventions must be tested with a similar population before implementation because what works for an institution may not work similarly for others. Thus, the evidence-based practice should be evaluated for compatibility before planning on its implementations

C1a. The program has exposed me to evidence-based research and expanded my knowledge of articles. It has taught me to differentiate between quantitative and qualitative research, determine peer-reviewed articles, and implement it in care settings.

C1b. The EBP project was the artifact responsible for the change in definition.

C1b1. The artifact listed above helped me develop my professional definition in task one by introducing the various components of evidence-based practice. Such activities include searching and analyzing articles to determine their possible contribution to evidence-based practice. The information learned will influence my future practice and improvements significantly.

C2a. Before the program, I did not know how to critically analyze research and determine its believability. After the program, I can utilize research effectively to improve my nursing practice and initiate and implement change in the institution. Relevance or appropriateness was a simple concept I understood but did not quite understand believability. The research chosen must be relatable to the topic, and the data must be acceptable.

The research methods, data collection, sample, sample calculation, time, and other factors should comply with the nursing research requirements to be believable. Research is a process that seeks information, while quality improvement is a process that focuses on enhancing outcomes. Research is used to fill knowledge gaps and can be helpful in quality improvement, while quality improvement focuses on changing already existing knowledge and translating it into clinical practice.

Primary research is investigations such as clinical trials implemented, observed, and analyzed by the researcher. Secondary research uses data from previously done primary research to understand a concept. Primary research helps discover and venture into new areas under investigation to improve knowledge or current practices, such as testing new drugs or interventions. Secondary research helps analyze current practices to determine their effectiveness and also helps find other interventions with better outcomes.

C2b. The program has increased my knowledge in assessing the research and determining its validity and reliability. It has also increased my knowledge of quality improvement, healthcare data evaluation, and quality improvement models that can be useful in implementing change. The k knowledge acquired will help implement change and oversee quality improvement backed by data from well-conducted research.

Applied Leadership

D1. Applied leadership refers to assuming leadership roles despite your position. Working in prison requires an individual to assume many leadership roles, such as seeking resources and instructing patients on their specific roles. The intention is to ensure everything runs as necessary without delay in care delivery.

D1a. The program has expanded my definition and insights on the topic. The professional roles and values course task challenged me to define various terms applicable to the nursing profession. The course helped build on my pre-existing knowledge and definitions of applied leadership to include higher functions and leadership as an essential role of nurses.

D1b. The artifact that supported my definition of applied leadership is the professionals’ roles and values course task 1.

D1b1. The task mentioned in D1b expanded my understanding of leadership characteristics and roles by defining applied leadership from two nursing historical figures. I was also able to outline and apply leadership characteristics to nursing roles. Leadership requires leaders to be team players, not just delegators, who should lead from the front in teams. The task improved my understanding of applied leadership, including the team player roles.

D2a.  Working with inmates requires working with various professionals such as wardens, social workers, patients, counselors, and doctors. These professionals perform specific roles such as containing patients, counseling, containing, and referring them. Leaders coordinate all these activities, and professionals must collaborate for effective leadership. If one unit fails to do its job, the whole unit fails, and leaders are accountable. Collaboration ensures all care aspects in healthcare are coordinated and well-done hence its relevance to nursing leadership.

Community and Population Health

Working with prisoners requires keen attention to their mental health. I focus on ensuring community safety and population health by helping these inmates inside and when discharging them. Education on healthy behaviors, the need for social support, community cohesiveness, and access to healthcare resources are vital interventions.

E1. Nothing much changed in my professional definitions, and the program deepened the understanding that solidified my definition. Community health is essential, and if their mental health is not assessed and managed, productivity will decrease, mental health facilities will fill up, and jails will flood due to increased crime rates. As a correctional nurse, I will emphasize more on accessing mental health resources in the community owing to the materials learned in the program.

E1a. The program opened my eyes to the fact that community problems are not so apparent and should thus be periodically assessed. It changed my definition of that community health to include that it requires research and data analysis.

E1b. C229 task 1

E1b1. The C229 task helped me indulge and work with community members, understanding their health problems, their causes, and ways of prevention. The task increased my knowledge and access to community members. It was vital to try and understand the problem from the mind of a community member. I discovered various things, such as that communities could live with a problem without knowing they exist or how they significantly affect them. It helped me know communities’ vulnerability due to various health determinants. All this information helped solidify ad modify my professional definition and understanding of population health

E2a. During the community heaty nursing task, I learned that the community suffers significantly from mental health issues. I also learned that mental health should accompany the care of all patients. I learned how to diagnose and communicate with the community to implement change. I also learned that healthcare professionals must collaborate and communicate with community members for better health outcomes and learned how to do so.

E2B. In addition to the things mentioned in E2a, I learned that mental health is an ignored problem despite its effects on care quality, patient safety, and healthcare costs. I also learned that there are few mental health hospitals and community resources to manage them. The understanding led to the diagnosis of “High rates of mental health issues among adults related to lack of knowledge of resources and poor access to mental health management resources.”

E2c. Working with the community increased my knowledge and understanding of the problem. The initial focus remained: the involvement solidified the stand and provided evidence of the problem. There are few mental health resources, and the communities do not know the few resources for preventing and managing mental health problems. Individuals only seek resources when mental health issues affect their daily routines.

E3. There are various individual differences, and the AMNH certificate will help me understand the differences caused by genetics as a professional nurse. The information will help me understand patient remission and care interventions and will thus help me prepare better patient-centered interventions, producing better patient outcomes.