Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical Placement is Paramount

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Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical
Placement is Paramount
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Table of Contents

• Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical
  Placement is Paramount
• Making the Best Out of Technology during Nursing
  Clinical Placement
• Tips for Working Successfully With Nursing
  Students
• Draw from personal experience
• Build an open, positive environment from day one
• Equip students with the right tools to succeed

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Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical
Placement is Paramount

• Everyone knows better engagement means better
  productivity. In general, when people are engaged
  in what they do, they feel a connection, are more
  enthusiastic and are better at communicating and
  thinking in detail about what they do. This is
  just as true in the case of nursing students
  during clinical placement.
• Highly engaged nursing students add value by
  bringing new ideas to the table and constantly
  working to improve performance and practices.
  Meaningful engagements means nursing students are
  no longer regarded as simple consumers or
  stand-byers during their clinical placement,
  but as partners in the process. They then become
  active actors of change whose fresh perspectives
  and visions can play a critical role in shifting
  the future of nursing care.

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• While everyone can agree in the beginning there
  are certain gaps in practice on their behalf,
  engaged student nurses interested in doing what
  is right and communicating as best as possible is
  vital. Here is where mentors come in. With the
  right support and teaching environment, future
  nurses can bloom and benefit from the expertise
  of well-rounded clinical professionals, with an
  underlying commitment to patients health.
  Results will always be better when engaged
  nursing professionals practice shared decision
  making.
• Another important aspect is engagement on a
  long-term basis. According to research (see
  below), on a 0 to 5 point scale, nurses are 4.34
  engaged in their first 6 months in a hospital.
  This number considerably decreases as time goes
  by, reaching as little as 4.02 after 3-5 years.
  This in itself is important. No nursing student
  will bring their very best knowing that after all
  of their years of learning and hard work, the
  future holds for them a less engaging career.
• But achieving engagement is not always easy.
  Nursing trainees face a number of challenges,
  from lack of confidence, gaps between theory and
  practice, a limited number of mentors, to
  insufficient awareness of hospital protocols and
  more. This is the reality in too many areas and
  specialties, leaving the nursing workforce
  struggling to cope with demand and being less
  able to perform at its best.

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• To be able to better respond to these challenges,
  there are a number of solutions that both mentors
  and students can adopt, including
• Acknowledging together the complexity of the work
• Fostering and modeling empathy and trust
• Encouraging more positive work-life balance
• Streamlining communication and information
  sharing, including through the use of new
  technologies and various softwares, such as
  clinical rotation management apps
• Making teamwork a reality not just a buzzword
• Healthcare is one of the most complex and
  multifaceted industries in the world, and equally
  one of the most important ones. And the nursing
  profession is an extremely important one that has
  been facing shortages in the past couple of
  years, because of such gaps. At no other career
  level there is as much engagement and excitement
  as seen among nursing students and that needs to
  be nurtured.

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Making the Best Out of Technology during Nursing
Clinical Placement

• Technology is a big part of our lives and it has
  made everything more convenient and comfortable.
  Nowadays, everyone has information at the tips of
  their fingers and this has made both learning and
  communication easier. It is only natural to
  leverage this immense potential to enhance the
  experience of students training for their
  careers. Nursing students in particular can tap
  into a world of benefits by tapping into the
  opportunities technology can offer to their
  field.
• On one hand, nursing schools and teaching
  hospitals are fundamentally improving their ways
  of working by integrating technology into the
  teaching environment, whether its theoretical or
  practice. This has been shown to foster more
  active and meaningful experiences. Real time data
  can help deliver better and more efficient care.
  Technology enabled working can reveal any
  patients journey in a manner of seconds, thus
  improving decision-making. This is incredibly
  valuable especially for a student at the
  beginning of their journey, trying to find their
  feet and understand the often complicated and
  unorganized charts.

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• Simultaneously, personalized learning experiences
  using artificial intelligence and machine
  learning are shifting the paradigm in how
  students engage with information and apply it. By
  exposing them to clinical scenarios they would
  probably not encounter during their practice or
  by providing them with information that is easily
  digestible and even interactive, technology
  bridges the gap between theory and practice.
• On the other hand, it empowers nursing students
  to take control of their experience and
  development. For instance, a fully integrated
  clinical rotation scheduling software can
  automate the strenuous workflow both in school
  and in hospital, and respond to the often
  encountered issue of mismanaged rotations. In a
  fast-paced environment such as healthcare, where
  round-the-clock responsibility is the norm and
  the amount of information created can quickly
  become confusing and overwhelming, having a
  user-friendly clinical rotation scheduling
  software on a phone or tablet can literally save
  lives.

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• In addition to this, any digitally savvy nursing
  student and not only, has the opportunity to
  choose the best way to access and accumulate
  information and knowledge. Everyone learns in
  different ways and has their own preferred
  channels and forms of doing so. Nursing students
  nowadays can listen to podcasts, watch videos or
  set up e-learning profiles and preferences that
  enables them to receive and consume information
  at their own pace.
• Another valuable benefit technology can foster is
  information exchange between students. Often the
  best way to learn is from other peoples
  experiences. Having the possibility to interact,
  communicate and debate across a variety of
  subjects and even locations can help millions of
  nursing students make the best out of their
  clinical placement, enrich their experience
  overall and better equip them for their future
  careers.
• Healthcare is not the only industry that can
  massively benefit from harnessing the power of
  technology, but it is without doubt the industry
  that was in much need of a solution.

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Tips for Working Successfully With Nursing
Students

• As a registered nurse practitioner, working with
  nursing students at some point is a given. Due to
  the fact that nursing is a practice based
  profession, clinical education is a critical
  stage in the careers of up and coming nurses. A
  successful experience will enable them to be
  competent, informed and encourage accountability
  and independence and this will largely be driven
  by the nurses who are already seasoned.
• However, working with a student, especially for
  someone who has never done it before might turn
  out to be challenging and overwhelming. Becoming
  a teacher is also substantially different than
  the day to day job many registered nurses are
  used to, so preparation is key. Below are a
  couple of tips and tricks that can help make
  working with nursing students as streamlined and
  successful as possible. A student nurse can
  leverage management placement software to keep
  track of everything and stay on top of deadlines
  and tasks.

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Draw from personal experience

• Probably the best starting point is to recall how
  your own clinical placement was and reflect on
  what worked, what didnt, what would have been
  great to know and be taught, and equally, the
  emotions that were involved. In To Kill a
  Mockingbird, Atticus Finchs famous line says
  You never really understand a person until you
  consider things from his point of view ...
  until you climb inside of his skin and walk
  around in it., this is a valuable lesson when
  tutoring a nursing student. And the advantage is
  that as an already practicing nurse, you will be
  able to find multiple similarities in spite of
  the fact that everyones placement will be
  inherently different.

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Build an open, positive environment from day one

• Any nurse knows that communication, quality,
  safety, and accountability are the four most
  important priorities day in day out. Patients
  lives depend on their performance and approach
  and this comes with increased pressure and fear
  of making a mistake, especially when starting
  fresh. Students will have a myriad of questions
  and its not uncommon for many of them to be left
  unasked for fear of sounding less informed.
  Similarly, many nurses can find themselves at the
  opposite poll, not wanting to stifle the
  students confidence they avoid correcting
  mistakes, and while this comes from a good place,
  it is still detrimental. The most appropriate way
  is to establish from day one that communication
  is a two way street and that there are no such
  thing as stupid questions.

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Equip students with the right tools to succeed

• Having worked in the field for a number of years
  now, nurses know all the best practices and
  helpful shortcuts. This knowledge should be
  passed on to student nurses as much as possible.
  It may be advice on how to deliver bad news to a
  patient, or just simply admin related. Management
  placement is difficult and requires multi-tasking
  and keeping track of a number of records and
  paperwork technology can help take the strain
  out of this.
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