Designing a standardised emergency nurse career pathway for rural, regional and metropolitan New South Wales, Australia: A consensus process
Tracks
Concurrent Stream 1
| Thursday, October 17, 2024 |
| 1:50 PM - 2:10 PM |
| Ionic Room |
Overview
Margaret Murphy
Speaker
Associate Professor Margaret Murphy
westmead
Designing a standardised emergency nurse career pathway for rural, regional and metropolitan New South Wales, Australia: A consensus process
1:50 PM - 2:10 PMAbstract
Introduction: Emergency nursing was established as a specialty in 1985. Emergency nurses are responsible for the initial and ongoing assessment, management, and safety of undifferentiated patients of all ages, with varying degrees of clinical urgency and complexity. However, there is no standardised emergency nurse career pathway. To address this gap, we developed a standardised consensus-based career pathway for use across Australian rural, regional, and metropolitan New South Wales (NSW) emergency departments (EDs). The aim of this paper is to report the methods and processes used to develop a standardised career pathway for emergency nurses.
Methods: There were 35 diverse EDs represented in the study, ranging from large metropolitan teaching hospitals to rural services without medical doctors onsite. Seven career pathways and 22 training course from six health districts, the College for Emergency Nursing Australasia, and NSW Ministry of Health were analysed. Using a consensus process, a 15-member expert panel developed the career pathway and educational requirements for pathway progression over six meetings from May to August 2023.
Results: The panel took 12 rounds to reach 100% consensus. An eight-step career pathway is required to progress emergency nurses to expert level. The pathway follows Benner’s novice to expert framework of skills acquisition, decision making and complexity. It requires 172 hours protected face to face time and 8 hours online education. It is informed by educational pedagogy of backward design, constructive alignment, and scaffolded learning.
Conclusion: A standardised career pathway with minimum 180 hours would enable a consistent approach to emergency nursing training and enable nurses to work to their full scope of practice. This will facilitate transferability of emergency nursing skills across jurisdictions.
Methods: There were 35 diverse EDs represented in the study, ranging from large metropolitan teaching hospitals to rural services without medical doctors onsite. Seven career pathways and 22 training course from six health districts, the College for Emergency Nursing Australasia, and NSW Ministry of Health were analysed. Using a consensus process, a 15-member expert panel developed the career pathway and educational requirements for pathway progression over six meetings from May to August 2023.
Results: The panel took 12 rounds to reach 100% consensus. An eight-step career pathway is required to progress emergency nurses to expert level. The pathway follows Benner’s novice to expert framework of skills acquisition, decision making and complexity. It requires 172 hours protected face to face time and 8 hours online education. It is informed by educational pedagogy of backward design, constructive alignment, and scaffolded learning.
Conclusion: A standardised career pathway with minimum 180 hours would enable a consistent approach to emergency nursing training and enable nurses to work to their full scope of practice. This will facilitate transferability of emergency nursing skills across jurisdictions.
Biography
Margaret is a clinical nurse consultant at Westmead Hospital and a clinical lecturer at The University of Sydney. She has an extensive clinical background in emergency nursing. She has post graduate qualifications in Critical Care and Mental Health Nursing, Education and Change Management. She has also worked as a principal project officer at the NSW Ministry of Health and has consulted on emergency care in Nepal, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangkok. She is a mother of two daughter and has a keen interest in trail walking and cycling. She sees herself as a clinician researcher. Being at the coalface is important to Margaret as it facilitates the generation of ideas and enables speedy translation of research evidence into clinical practice. Her PhD study focused on the impact of trauma team training on patients and health service delivery and today she is going to talk about that journey.
