Empowering the Next Generation of Nursing Students

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and healthcare practices in the healthcare system (Wilson et al., 2015). Evidence based practice promotes change, positive health outcomes, safety and efficiency (Wilson et al., 2015). Throughout our education, we have seen that the world of healthcare is constantly changing, from the history of Florence Nightingale to the digital platforms of Canadian healthcare, all of which is a result of evidence based practice education and medical and nursing practice.

Positive Change for Patient Outcomes and the Nursing Profession

The purpose of this review is to examine the influence of informatics in the healthcare system and how informatics creates positive change. Utilizing the information we gathered from our presentation to pre-requisite year nursing students from the U of S and the available literature, we are examining the influence of informatics in a constantly changing world of healthcare and how we can influence and empower our future nurses. Registered nurses are able to support one another through this challenge with the guidance provided by the Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Registered Nurses (2008). The contents of the Code of Ethics provides the groundwork for self-reflection, allowing the nurse to gain meaningful experience in their practice (Canadian Nursing Association, 2008). The continuous merge of health and technology has changed the delivery of evidence based practice. Current literature provides examples of how nurses are empowering other nurses to meet the needs of the expanding role. Virtual nurse mentoring is a platform which facilitates collaboration between an apprenticing nurse and a nurse with extensive experience (Clement, 2014). However, as nursing is identified as a distinct domain, nurse to nurse empowerment will continue to be the forefront.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This review of the literature was performed in September- November 2015. We chose to present to the pre-requisite year of nursing students in order to inform them of the current nursing program that awards a BSN once completed. We also facilitated a survey using the website www.socrative.com to receive statistics and feedback based on our presentation. A digital search was conducted to identify and select documents from three areas: CINAHL, U of S online library and Medline. Selected studies met the following inclusion criteria: (a) published during (2006-2015); (b) discussed nursing informatics and nursing empowerment; (c) presented content relevant to nursing informatics, informatics in healthcare, and the empowerment of current and future nurses. Keywords used for retrieving studies were included on all search engines; nursing informatics, nursing, healthcare informatics, nursing leadership, health care technology, nursing technology, and nursing students.

As stated previous, empowering the next generation of nursing students by employing informatics in an effort to increase positive patient outcomes and overall impact the nursing profession was the aim of this project. We targeted future nursing students – the U of S prerequisite students- to assess and analyze the needs of this population to better prepare them to successfully achieving a BSN degree. Striving to educate the population through presenting essential information and providing them the knowledge of course load/content, clinical expectations and tips, such as the importance of NClex preparation, was our goal. We spoke to the 19 prerequisite students at the Saskatchewan Polythechnic with a U of S Professional Academic Advisor, Pat Taciuk, in attendance. The presentation was well received by the students who did attend. This is evident from the high completion rate of the survey, which was 100% and from verbal feedback on the presentation and its informative value. Ideally it is essential to track this group of nursing students throughout their educational career and onward into their first year of practice to accurately analyze our program and its effectiveness to promote empowerment and help them succeed in the BSN program. After researching tools to evaluate this group’s competency it was concluded that Self-Efficacy in Clinical Placement Scale (SECP) would be a benefit to utilize for evaluation of the nursing students clinical placements and their first year in the nursing profession (Cheraghi, F., Hassani, P., Yaghmaei, F. & Alavi-Majed, H, 2009).

RESULTS

The compilation of data identified from the review of literature gave a more complete representation of how nursing student empowerment lead through nursing informatics can ultimately promote positive change in the nursing profession resulting in work flow, patient safety and quality care (Anderson, C. & Sensmeier, 2015).The 18 resources obtained met the inclusion criteria to gain a thorough perspective on the topic of nursing student empowerment, informatics and how the two can influence clinical patient outcomes positively. While the three areas are separate concepts they can be thought of as interconnected, meaning the first can impact the next and so on.

We went into the Prince Albert U of S Campus and presented to the prospective nursing students. We introduced the college of nursing and what to expect throughout their journey as a nursing student including classes, clinicals and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations. We emphasized the need to support each other, and that the BSN program utilizes informatics to promote and facilitate their learning. Refer to Appendix A for the survey results implemented using socrative software.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Unfortunately, our invitation to the various high schools in Prince Albert did not receive reciprocation this year. The plan remains to continue to try to reach the younger population so we will request their participation again in 2016. When the presentation is made to the high school population next September, the group will tailor the power point presentation to accommodate the high school credits needed to be eligible to enter into the prerequisite nursing program, the average needed in order to do so, and the programs offered at Saskatchewan Polytechnic to gain those credits if they were not received or if upgrading in necessary. In order to reach a larger number of the prerequisite students, the poster promoting the presentation will be emailed to each student using their U of S paws account as well as be posted up in the students classrooms. In 2016 we also plan to go with the U of S Professional Academic Advisor on two occasions to facilitate education opportunities for the students on more than one account. Because creating an environment of acceptance is critical in this endeavor, a list of useful resources, apps and facebook pages