The Importance of Professional Development for Nurses

Professional Development Providing the best level of care to patients is of the utmost importance and that means staying up to date on training. The medical knowledge is always changing, particularly rapidly over the last few years with so many recent advancements in technology. It’s important for nursing professionals to stay up-to-date with these medical advancements both for their own professional development but also for the benefit of their patients.

CPD is important for employer as they can assess your skillset to see if you require any additional support in certain procedures. This means that they are confident that the nurses are doing their job to the best of their ability and that they are getting the support that they need.

CPD is important for you as a healthcare professional too. Professional development helps you to continue making meaningful and efficient contributions to your team. It helps you to work efficiently and with confidence. Ongoing professional development can also help you advance in your career as you can move into new positions where you can lead, coach, manage, and mentor others.

Continuing professional development refers to any activity that contributes to your professional development as a nurse or healthcare professional. CPD not only benefits the patients in your care, as they are receiving the best care that they can possibly get, but it also benefits you, as the nurse. CPD means that you can perform your current job to the highest degree and it also contributes greatly towards advancement in your career.

The importance of professional development for nurses is that high-performing organizations recognize the significance of professional development plans for new and incumbent nurses. More and more, organizations across the continuum of care are recognizing the impact of nurse competency and satisfaction on patient care and outcomes, as well as the bottom line. Furthermore, nurses should increasingly anticipate ongoing professional development throughout their careers and consider lifelong learning to be a part of a healthy work environment.

In especially trying times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare leaders can lose sight of the important role professional development can play in terms of a support system for nurses. It becomes imperative in times of crisis for organizations to ensure their staff have the much-needed support to provide safe and effective care, especially when faced with a pandemic and managing a crisis.  Professional development can play a key role in providing opportunities to learn about managing new disease processes and complex patient populations.  In addition, organizations can further promote learning opportunities regarding self-care and avoiding burnout, especially during a crisis.

Therefore, it is important for organizations to prioritize professional development across each nurse’s different career stages, from new graduates to seasoned veterans. Long-standing hiring and onboarding programs remain crucial, as well as innovative ways to adapt lifelong education to individual needs, which changes behavior and promotes continuous professional development.

Nursing professional development plays a critical role to ensure quality care, career satisfaction, and a solid pipeline for tomorrow’s leaders. By committing to the practice of these three critical components, your organization will lead the charge to create an engaged, proficient, and motivated nursing workforce ready to take on the challenges of an ever-changing healthcare landscape.

Organizations will undoubtedly benefit from having a solid nursing professional development program in place—and by first identifying areas of improvements for nurses, leaders can develop the most appropriate professional nursing goals for the organization. Understanding that nursing professional development programs can’t afford to fall by the wayside, even in times of budget constraints or unprecedented events (COVID-19) is also key for healthcare leaders. If anything, the existence of professional development programs is needed now more than ever to help support the nursing community in an especially difficult environment.  Ideally, the following examples of professional goals for nurses will support the overarching aims of most hospitals and health systems. In alignment with your organization’s goals, here are five examples of professional goals for nurses:

  • Pursue advanced certifications (relative to clinical practice area)
  • Remain focused on career path
  • Seek advancement opportunities
  • Prioritize continuing education and advanced learning opportunities
  • Lead a quality improvement or patient safety initiative

Nurse leaders have the duty of giving the resources and support to advance professional development in their establishment. Through persuasive talking, disposal of professional development barriers, and consolation of shared administration, a nurse leader can advance individual medical professional development that will uphold medical services development and ideal patient results. If you need more professional help, click HERE.

 

 

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