Nursing Reflective Journal Professional Capstone

Nursing Reflective Journal Professional Capstone

Professional Capstone Journal Example

Week 1

New practice approaches-

Weekly activities: During this first week, we discussed the difference between reliable and community or generic level searches in databases for research information. We looked at potential barriers to implementing evidence based practice nursing among all skill levels and also recommended ways to address those barriers when they arose. Conversation amongst student centered around research preferences and tips for expanding peer reviewed research for the coming course. During the course of this program I have noticed that change in the nursing field is met with much resistance and that it is not easy to implement new ideas or policies when there are people who are not as open to changes or the concept of evidence based practice. Nursing Reflective Journal Professional Capstone

Scholarly activities This week I participated in shadowing my mentor to better understand what the director of a telemetry floor role `looks like. We did rounds first thing in the morning to meet the patients and address any concerns that they had about their care or the staff they encountered, we attended a quality meeting where we discussed the monthly audits that were being changed due to preparation for surveys by our corporate officers, state and JCAHO in the next six months or so. I also was given the opportunity to sit in on a medication management meeting where they reviewed changes to any policies coming from pharmacy and a list of the last two month’s medication errors to determine if there could be policy changes to prevent reoccurring errors from happening again.

Week 2

Intraprofessional collaboration

Weekly activities- this week discussion was focused on issues and problems observed at the clinical level and possible interventions to address those problems. Evidence based practice nursing was also addressed and its challenges to implement the most recent evidence based practice nursing. Topics for our capstone were discussed with our mentors. I have chosen to focus on continuity of care to decrease length of stay for diabetics. My mentor suggested I try adapting my topic to reflect a cardiac topic as there might be more opportunity for research articles and also being that her unit was a telemetry floor it seemed like the most obvious answer. I decided to stay with diabetes as the generic topic and my identified problem would be lack of continual and standardized education for diabetics throughout their stay as inpatients. The interventions selected would be maintaining continuity of care for nursing staff including physicians as well; and also creating a teaching plan for diabetics utilizing a diabetic educator to see the patient on admission and to follow them through their stay, much as a patient who sees physical therapy or respiratory therapy. The diabetic educator is a role that could be incredibly useful to reduce length of stay for patients and to reduce readmissions as well.

Week 3

Health care delivery and clinical systems

Weekly activities- this week, we created and developed the PICOT statement paper and began to outline the arguments and project for implementation. This week was interesting in that we were finding out what clinical projects we were interested in researching. During class, we discussed evaluating evidence in a research project and began to find sources that we would be using to develop our argument. Using the correct evidence to establish the appropriate delivery of care for patients will allow for more solid arguments and stronger implementation plans. Developing the PICOT statement paper was a bit of a challenge as the original topic that I wanted is not the direct topic I have proposed but will look for

Week 4

Ethical considerations in health care

Weekly activities- this week we continued to compile the research and resources that better supports the designated argument intended to support our implementation projects. This week was very frustrating for me as I had to go back and start over a project that I had already put almost 6 weeks into from the previous research class and the first couple weeks of this course. The issue was that I wanted to implement a project that was not clinical in nature. I will keep this idea in mind and move forward trying to meet the guidelines needed for this project. This week in class we addressed the literature evaluation table, comparing nursing theories and establishing a better understanding of health care systems locally to meet ethical components in implementing our projects

Week 5

Population health concerns

Weekly activities- this week in discussion and classroom environment we discussed the support services that were important to developing and approving our projects. Being aware of the population and the community health issues makes the project more solidified for the project stakeholders. We addressed potential challenges and barriers that could present when trying to establish community and national stakeholder support. This week I was mostly working on catching up from the last two weeks of being behind from restarting the project with a new and revised idea.

Week 6

The role of technology in improving health care outcomes

Weekly activities- this week we submitted the full literature review expanded from the literature review table. This week was frustrating in the sense that this was now the longest class we had taken during this course and took some serious focus on staying active and productive in my project development. We had a moment of reflection thus far to look back on how our project has been developed over the course. We also discussed how technology and advancements can help and hinder the development of our project implementations.

Week 7

Health policy

Weekly activities- This week was primarily the first of two or three weeks of finishing compiling the evidence and research and developing our paper further. We looked at methods for disseminating information within our facility and to the community as well. After determining methods for spreading the information to the stakeholders and community, we also discussed and learned about different ways to evaluate effectiveness of project implementation. This week I found myself not being as productive as I probably should have, knowing that there were two more weeks to go to edit and write the last portion of the capstone paper.

Week 8

Leadership and economic models

Weekly activities- This week we looked further into the methods of evaluation. I drafted and began to work on an implementation plan and submitted for review. We discussed the difference in statistical significance and clinical significance. I found it most interesting that an implementation could be statistically significant, but mean nothing essentially in the clinical aspect depending on how large the change was or if it would be worth the cost to implement a project that show little or no clinical purposefulness. We identified independent and dependent variables in our projects and had good discussion on possible variables for each persons’ project. This week I began to outline the capstone essay in a very rough draft, but created a tentative plan to meet the goal of finishing by next week.

Week 9

Health disparities

Weekly activities- this week we assembled the entire coursework of assignments and discussion posts to create our capstone project. There was a lot of editing from the previous assignments and breaking down the discussions to be scholarly work and continued to develop the resources into appropriate areas to strengthen the argument. We discussed changes in the working environment and how to keep the change over the long-term period. We also addressed our strengths and weaknesses academically and how to better improve them. It is a relief to almost be done with the class, even if I still have one rogue class to take after due to poor planning early in the curriculum.

Week 10

Weekly activities- This week mainly comprised of finishing up the project and submitting the final assignment for the course. Reflecting on the last ten weeks has been a relieving experience to know that the course is over and am feeling accomplished in the project and the progress that was made towards implementing a diabetic educator to my facility. Creating and developing an evidence based project for implementation has been an interesting experience and will provide for a foundation to build on in the future with more education development, after a break from school and course work of course.