Patient-Perceived Access to Care When Actively Seeking Treatment.

Purpose/objectives: To examine predictors of perceived access to care and reported barriers to care of patients with cancer actively seeking treatment.
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Design: Retrospective secondary data analysis.

The presence and roles of nurse navigators in acute care hospitals.

Objective: A survey of hospital-based nurse executives was conducted to determine the extent, approaches, and outcomes of nurse navigator (NN) programs.

Background: Nurse navigators are distinct from other recognized healthcare roles. Navigators most commonly focus on a single health condition with the goal of improving the provision of specified health services for an individual patient.

Differentiated essential competencies: a view from practice.

This article describes the results of strategies to elicit views of practicing nurses by the Texas Board of Nursing regarding competencies expected of new graduate licensed vocational nursing/LPN, associate degree/diploma, and baccalaureate nurses. The implications of these perceptions regarding the competencies expected of new graduates in Texas are considered, with questions posed for future exploration.

Transitioning associate degree in nursing students to the Bachelor of Science in nursing and beyond: a mandate for academic partnerships.

The Institute of Medicine recommendation for 80% of nurses to achieve a baccalaureate degree in nursing by 2020 becomes a major challenge in Texas with only 37.3% of nurses holding this degree in 2010 (Institute of Medicine, 2011). The challenge requires a 42.

Evaluating the impact of scenario-based high-fidelity patient simulation on academic metrics of student success.

Despite the ongoing nursing shortage, nurse educators are responsible for preparing students to practice in highly complex health care systems. As nurse educators explore new learning strategies to support an increase in student admissions, they must also evaluate the impact of these strategies on the quality of the educational experience. The study reported here evaluated the impact of scenario-based, high-fidelity patient simulation used to increase student admissions in an associate degree and baccalaureate nursing program in north-central Texas upon students' sense of their own clinical competence, graduating grade point average (GPA), and performance on standardized exit examinations.

Assessing continued competency through simulation: A call for stringent action.

This article proposes that simulation has potential as a method to validate critical and reflective thinking skills and continued competency of registered nurses. The authors recognize the challenges and benefits for using simulation in assessing competency. Furthermore, the authors stress that the potential use of simulation in competency testing cannot be achieved until educators and researchers acquire the specific knowledge and skills to make informed decisions and recommend policy.

West Texas nursing education portal project: developing a regional centralized application system.

Because of the nursing shortage and a demand for maximum enrollment, a group of five baccalaureate and seven associate degree nursing programs in West Texas first met in 2007 to form the West Texas Nursing Education Consortium (WTNEC). To emphasize the importance of scale and distance, the West Texas region is larger than all of the northeastern states combined. The founding group agreed that the first mission of WTNEC should be to pool resources in order to increase admission and graduation rates for WTNEC schools.

Competency education and validation in the United States: what should nurses know?

This article provides an overview of the progress in the past decade toward effectively documenting the initial and continuing competence of registered nurses.

Creating tomorrow's leaders today: the Emerging Nurse Leaders Program of the Texas Nurses Association.

The Texas Nurses Association initiated an Emerging Nurse Leaders Program as an approach to engaging new nurses in the leadership of the professional association. This article explains the program's origin, the commitment of the Texas Nurses Association to this process, the implementation of the plan, and the discussions that launched a new way of connecting leaders across generations. Further, it is an approach that any professional organization can use to encourage the involvement of new leaders.

A regional simulation center partnership: collaboration to improve staff and student competency.

This article describes the development of a Regional Simulation Center by a hospital, university, and community college to provide competency education and validation for students, nurses, and other allied health staff. Using high-fidelity patient simulators and scenario-based simulations, bachelor's of science in nursing-prepared laboratory mentors provide realistic opportunities for hospital staff and students to validate their clinical judgment as well as their psychomotor skills. The process of development, as well as the advantages of the partnership for the hospital and the nursing programs, is outlined.

A competency transcript to assess and personalize new graduate competency.

The competence of a new registered nurse (RN) at the time of graduation influences the rapidity with which the RN becomes an effective practitioner. One school of nursing offering a bachelor of science in nursing developed a competency documentation system, a "competency transcript," to better describe the graduate's clinical judgment and psychomotor skill. This transcript was used as a communication tool between a clinical agency and a university school of nursing and was also used to help one hospital personalize orientation based on the learning needs of the graduate, with the goal of decreasing orientation time and cost.

The evolution of simulation and its contribution to competency.

Nurse educators are challenged to implement teaching strategies that promote learners' clinical competency and critical-thinking skills. Additionally, these educators are asked to base their curriculum decisions, teaching practices, and evaluation methods on current research findings. Simulation offers a unique mode for experiential learning and evaluation, but the appropriate use of the spectrum of simulation typology requires strategic planning.

Conflict management styles in the health professions.

The purpose of the study was to determine prevalent conflict management styles chosen by students in nursing and to contrast these styles with those chosen by students in allied health professions. The associations among the level of professional health care education and the style chosen were also determined. A convenience sample of 126 students in a comprehensive university completed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), which requires respondents to choose behaviors most characteristic of their response to conflict and classifies these behaviors as one of five styles.

An economic analysis of patient simulators clinical training in nursing education.

Patient simulators have become widely used in medical education including increasing use in nursing education. Research suggests their usefulness in developing nursing competence. Little research to date, however, has examined the financial feasibility of the use of patient simulators as an educational tool.

Innovation in nursing education: a statewide grant initiative.

Meeting the challenges of the nursing shortage appears to be daunting for schools of nursing across the nation as they struggle to meet educational capacity needs with limited resources. A statewide grant program was developed and implemented through legislative initiatives providing opportunities for schools of nursing to respond to the need for innovation in nursing education. This article shares some of the successes and challenges identified through the process of implementing and evaluating this grant program.

Preparing faculty and students for an international nursing education experience.

As society becomes increasingly globalized, it is imperative to include international educational perspectives in the nursing profession. This article shares experiences of a university and hospital in facilitating education of students of nursing from India. It includes implementing partnerships, student selection process, and transcultural considerations.

Build a framework for conflict assessment.

Review a framework for assessing organizational conflict in a case study format that illustrates implementation strategies.

Institutional collaboration not competition: preparing family nurse practitioners to serve rural areas.

In response to the need for an increased number of family nurse practitioners in rural Texas, The University of Texas at Tyler, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and Midwestern State University entered into a collaborative arrangement to provide advanced education to nurses in outlying areas of the state. The catchment area for the project encompassed 72 counties, representing half the land mass in Texas. This article presents the development of the collaborative model, strategies used for implementation, and evaluation of this collaborative effort.

Impact of managed care on oncology.

Objective: To review the general principles of managed care, including purpose, concept of risk, insurance mechanisms, and types of reimbursement.

Data Sources: Textbooks and journal articles.

Conclusions: At times, managed health care may restrict the options available to the consumer and the provider of care and can lead to ethical and legal issues.