Informing the development midwifery standards for practice: A literature review for policy development.

Aim: To critically appraise and synthesise the literature regarding the role and scope of midwifery practice, specifically to inform the evidence based development of standards for practice for all midwives in Australia.

Design: A structured scoping review of the literature DATA SOURCES: CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE Complete and Cochrane Libraries databases, online and grey literature databases REVIEW METHODS: Comprehensive searches of databases used key words and controlled vocabulary for each database to search for publications 2006-2016. Studies were not restricted by research method.

Comparison of Australian specialty nurse standards with registered nurse standards.

Aim: This study aimed to determine whether registered nurse Australian specialty competency standards identified unique capabilities of nursing practice.

Background: Use of the term specialist in nursing commenced early in the twentieth century with the growth and diversification of postgraduate nursing education. Courses in speciality nursing were associated with the development of specialty competency standards in Australia.

Development of the Nurse Practitioner Standards for Practice Australia.

This article describes the context and development of the new Nurse Practitioner Standards for Practice in Australia, which went into effect in January 2014. The researchers used a mixed-methods design to engage a broad range of stakeholders who brought both political and practice knowledge to the development of the new standards. Methods included interviews, focus groups, surveys, and work-based observation of nurse practitioner practice.

Knowledge and motivation: two elements of health literacy that remain low with regard to nurse practitioners in Australia.

Objective: This paper presents analysis of consumer focus groups that were undertaken as a part of the project to develop the now current Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia's Nurse Practitioner Standards for Practice.

Methods: Six focus groups were conducted with consumers around Australia, including urban and remote areas. One purpose for these groups was to explore what was known of nurse practitioners and whether consumers could articulate the difference between the regulated titles of enrolled nurse, registered nurse and nurse practitioner.

Changing practice to support self-management and recovery in mental illness: application of an implementation model.

Health services introducing practice changes need effective implementation methods. Within the setting of a community mental health service offering recovery-oriented psychosocial support for people with mental illness, we aimed to: (i) identify a well-founded implementation model; and (ii) assess its practical usefulness in introducing a new programme for recovery-oriented self-management support. We reviewed the literature to identify implementation models applicable to community mental health organisations, and that also had corresponding measurement tools.

e-Learning competency for practice nurses: an evaluation report.

Practice nurses in Australia are now funded to facilitate chronic condition management, including self-management support. Chronic disease management requires an established rapport, support and proactivity between general practitioners, patients and the practice nurses. To achieve this, training in shared decision making is needed.

Competency standards and educational requirements for specialist breast nurses in Australia.

There is substantial evidence that Specialist Breast Nurses (SBNs) make an important contribution to improved outcomes for women with breast cancer, by providing information and support and promoting continuity of care. However, a recent study has identified significant variation in how the role functions across individual nurses and settings, which is likely to contribute to varied outcomes for women with breast cancer. The project reported in this paper illustrates how a set of competency standards for SBNs were developed by the National Breast Cancer Centre.

Mentoring for nurses in general practice: national issues and challenges.

This paper reports the findings of a research project designed to identify national issues impacting on the development of a mentoring framework for nurses in general practice in Australia. The project comprised the first phase of a three-phase study commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing to develop a contemporary, flexible and sustainable mentoring framework that enhances the capacity of nurses to contribute to general practice outcomes. Key stakeholders and influential informants from around Australia were brought together via a national teleconference to identify issues surrounding the development of such a framework.

Australian enrolled nurses have their say--Part 2: Scope of practice.

Determination of the scope of practice for enrolled nurses has been an ongoing issue in Australia, compounded by the existence of two regulated levels of nurse with often overlapping roles and functions. This paper explores enrolled nurse scope of practice, drawing on findings from national research that examined the role, function and competencies of the enrolled nurse. Enrolled nurses from a range of settings in all states and territories participated in telephone interviews exploring their experiences of practice and the role and function of the enrolled nurse.

Australian enrolled nurses have their say--Part 1: Teamwork and recognition.

Nurses are a cornerstone to the Australian health care workforce and are under increasing pressure to respond to changes in health care demands, the redistribution of health care funding and shortages in nursing workforce availability and skill mix. It is in this context that the role and function of the enrolled nurse has come under recent scrutiny. This paper reports on the qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted as one aspect of an Australia wide multi-phased investigation of enrolled nursing practice and competency standards for this practice.

Mentoring for nurses in general practice: an Australian study.

This paper presents findings from a project conducted to recommend a national framework for mentoring for general practice nurses in Australia. The first phase identified challenges and key issues; the second and third phases (reported here) engaged practice nurses and general medical practitioners in discussion to advance thinking on the topic. Outcomes revolved around seven core areas: role confusion and diversity of practice nursing; lack of a defined career pathway for practice nurses; professional isolation of practice nurses; need for general practitioner support; expectations of mentoring; importance of resourcing and infrastructure; and roles, skills and qualities of mentors.

Regulating hospital use: length of stay, beds and whiteboards.

This paper presents part of a larger study of contemporary nursing practice and the rationalisation of hospital length of stay. Informed by Michel Foucault's work on governmentality, length of hospital stay and the re-engineering of surgical services are examined, not in terms of numerical representations of hospital use, but as part of social and political processes through which certain concepts are made susceptible to measurement and practices are organised. Using data generated through fieldwork in a hospital surgical division this analysis offers understandings of how social practices around length of hospital stay are translated and how they pattern contemporary hospital nursing practice.

Contemporary enrolled nursing practice: opportunities and issues.

Over the last decade, Australia, as with the rest of the developed world, has experienced a widespread labour market decline in the numbers of nurses in the health workforce. Concurrent with this nursing shortage, the second level nurse has, in many countries, ceased to be recognised as a legitimate nursing role. In Australia, recent research indicates that the enrolled nurse role, though contentious, is consolidating as a core component of the health care workforce.

Research directions for specialist practice.

Emergency nursing is a specialist area of practice that demands particular knowledge and skills. This paper reports on a study to identify the research directions necessary to advance emergency nursing as a specialist area of practice. Nurses working in nine Australian hospital emergency departments responded to questions about current research practices, and the research priorities necessary to inform the development of knowledge and practice in the evolving specialty of emergency nursing.

Nursing documentation and nursing practice: a discourse analysis.

Nursing documentation exists as a daily reality of nurses' work. It is interpreted by some as the evidence of nursing actions and dismissed by others as a misrepresentation of nursing care. This paper reports on a study of nursing documentation as nursing practice.