Applying Advanced Practice Nurses in Rural Japan: A Mixed-Methods Perspective.

Introduction Rural hospitals, particularly those in geographically isolated regions like Shimane Prefecture, Japan, face significant healthcare delivery challenges. These include limited resources, an aging population, and a scarcity of healthcare professionals. Advanced practice nurses (APNs) have emerged as pivotal in addressing these gaps, offering specialized patient assessment, diagnosis, and management skills.

The Implementation of a Clinical Ladder in Rural Japanese Nursing Education: Effectiveness and Challenges.

The clinical ladder is an essential tool for nursing education, enabling nurses to ascend from novice to expert. The learning content for nurses can depend on their clinical situations. The aging of societies has changed the demand for nurses at community hospitals because of the multimorbidity of older patients.

Development of a Competency Scale for Nurses of a Japanese Community Hospital: The Unnan Ladder.

Background And Purpose: The Japanese Nurse Association (JNA) has established the JNA ladder to assess competency in various clinical nursing settings in Japan. This study developed and tested a specific Japanese community hospital's Nurse Competency Scale (the Unnan ladder).

Methods: Using the Delphi method, the contents of the Unnan ladder were identified and validated in a four-step approach.

Physical assessment by Japanese community hospital nurses compared to that performed overseas: A cross-sectional study.

Background: Japanese nurses may not be adequately trained to perform physical assessments compared to nurses overseas due to differences in accessibility to education; currently, research investigating this discrepancy is limited. This study investigated the current performance levels of Japanese community nurses in physical assessments and compared their performance to that of nurses overseas.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we examined the practical application of physical assessments conducted by nurses at a Japanese community hospital.