Excellence in nursing is owed to the availability of infrastructure that has enhanced the nursing fraternity. This excellence has also been aided by the favorable working conditions that are provided to the nurses to enable them to provide satisfactory services. In fact, without excellence in nursing, it would be difficult for healthcare providers to achieve their mission.
According to Kirkley, Johnson, and Anderson (2004), four approaches have been used in achieving excellence in nursing, and they are: practice, career advancement, research, and education. In this case, the mentioned approaches are explained as examples of excellence attributed to VA hospital in the outpatient department of home mental health. Practice excellence is manifested through the introduction of new improvements. In addition, new delivery strategies have been put in place at VA hospital as an indicator of excellence in nursing. The service that is provided in nursing is based on the evidence of practice, which aims at analyzing how nurses relate with their patients.
Career development in nursing has been exercised through the introduction of certifications that are issued by oversight boards. These certifications are issued to nursing institutions that offer high quality services that meet international standards. Career development is a very demanding approach because it is broad. The other contribution to excellence in nursing is perceived to be the registration of nurses from VA hospital with professional organizations such as National League for Nursing.
Education is also used to enhance excellence in nursing because it is the only sure way of maintaining the excellence that has been achieved. At times, nurses are chosen at random and sponsored to go through training programs that are meant to keep them updated about the emerging trends in nursing. Besides, VA hospital has integrated scholars in nursing institutions to help in carrying out research that is meant to come up with better approaches of achieving excellence in nursing.
Malloch and Porter-O’Grady (2009) argue that most of the initiatives towards excellence in nursing have been made possible through the availability of money provided by the US federal government to the healthcare department. Without reliable source of money, the mentioned initiatives would not have been possible. Of all the approaches, board certification is the most preferred strategy in the US because it is easily integrated with the other approaches, including education, practice, and career advancement.
This is because through the board certifications, nurses get better pay thus advancing in career. Moreover, certification amounts to education because the nurses have to go through training programs before being awarded the certification.
Additionally, the excellence that has been achieved in nursing is owed to the integration of information technology in the VA hospital. This means that information technology has been incorporated with nursing practice which has helped in improving the performance of nurses. Information Technology has played a major role as far as nursing practice is concerned because the nurses have used it as a platform to exchange ideas and carry out their research schedules.
In this regard, the above mentioned approaches are related to healthcare systems in different ways. For instance, the board certifications make sure that nurses who are in nursing practice are very knowledgeable in their profession. The boards that issue certifications have ethics that are to be adhered to internationally and thus, if any professional in the nursing goes against them, the certification is cancelled. Furthermore, the education part of it is used to determine who climbs up the clinical ladder in nursing.
In addition, the board certifications make the caregivers have a common regulation. Likewise, the integration of Information Technology has made it possible for the processes that are involved in completing the tasks in nursing to be finished faster than usual. The excellence in nursing has resulted in many patients being contented. In essence, there has been a decline in patients who die in hospitals, or under the care of nurses.
References
Kirkley, D., Johnson, A. P., & Anderson, M. A. (2004). Technology Support of Nursing Excellence: The Magnet Connection. Medscape News. Web.
Malloch, K. & Porter-O’Grady, T. (2009). Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare. Canada: Jones & Bartlett Learning.