Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical Placement is Paramount

1. Why Nursing Student Engagement during Clinical Placement is Paramount

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 it’s 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 patient’s 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.

7. 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.

8. 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 people’s 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.

9. 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.

10. Draw from personal experience Probably the best starting point is to recall how your own clinical placement was and reflect on what worked, what didn’t, what would have been great to know and be taught, and equally, the emotions that were involved. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch’s 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 everyone’s placement will be inherently different.

11. 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 it’s 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 student’s 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.

12. 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. Visit - https://rotationmanager.com/clinical-rotation-scheduling/ https://rotationmanager.com/faqs/