NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams
NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams
In this course, students are provided with an overview of the evolution of nursing as a profession and introduced to their new role as scholar-practitioners. They examine changes in the U.S. healthcare delivery system, the importance of information technology, and measures that promote quality, safety, and better health outcomes in patient care. Students consider major issues and trends in contemporary nursing and healthcare practice, including the influence of socioeconomic, ethical, legal, and political variables and professional values. Through weekly discussions and assignments, students explore and share personal experiences in the context of contemporary nursing issues, such as the nursing shortage, workforce challenges, healthcare financing, professional organizations, and diversity. They are challenged to examine and propose solutions to these nursing issues in addition to those in their workplace. Students reflect on Walden’s mission of social change and its impact on their future nursing practice as a scholar-practitioner. Because this is the first nursing course within the RN/BSN program, students learn to use Walden University’s resources to enhance writing skills. Students are also introduced to the tools essential to success at Walden.
♦ Students may take this as a non-degree course, which means they do not have to be enrolled in a program. Contact an Enrollment Advisor [1-866-492-5336 (U.S.); 1-443-627-7222 (toll)] for more information.
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NURS 3101 Issues & Trends in Nursing: Welcome & Course Readings
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5 Nursing Trends to Watch
More Outpatient Care
Outpatient care is in demand due to a number of factors, including pressure to keep down costs and more effective technologies and treatments that have eliminated the need for overnight hospital stays. Financial constraints, such as high insurance deductibles, have also caused many patients to put off elective procedures. However, these patients often still require extensive medical attention, hence the need for more outpatient facilities and care. Nurses will also find opportunities in outpatient settings such as ambulatory care clinics, rehabilitation centers, and clinics attached to assisted-living facilities, and even telehealth providers.
The Importance of Cultural Competency
At its core, health care is about people, and different people have different needs. That has never been more true in the U.S. health care system than today, when nurses are helping individuals, families, and groups from ever more diverse backgrounds. Nurses who are who are sensitive to the cultural habits, traditions, and beliefs of their patients will be able to provide care that takes these into account. For example, some patients may speak English as a second language, affecting their understanding of directions or medical terminology; patients from certain religions may have dietary restrictions; and some individuals come from cultures where they fare best when they are surrounded by family rather than isolated in a hospital room. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
Preventive Health
Wellness continues to be a growing issue in health care, especially as organizations move to keep costs down as they improve outcomes. Patients are becoming savvier about maintaining their own wellness, from modifying their diets to wearing trackers that measure their activity levels. Nurses can help by focusing on measures to prevent chronic illnesses such as diabetes, slow down or mitigate the effects of aging on the body via exercise, and improve overall wellness—as well as by educating patients about what further steps they can take on their own to improve their health.
Increasing Consumer Sophistication
Patients are also extremely knowledgeable about where to turn for health information, often doing their own research on the Internet. Consequently, patients may come to appointments with their own possible diagnoses and suggested treatments and medications. Such awareness can be as potentially harmful as it is helpful, forcing nurses to sort through possibly flawed information and incorrect assumptions as they perform health assessments. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
The Rise of Nurse Informatics
As technology produces more data, supports better record keeping, and allows for detailed analysis, health informatics has become increasingly important in health care. Similarly, nurse informatics can support evidence-based nursing practice and improved patient care through better data collection, information analysis, easier and faster collaboration between health care professionals, and identification of both large- and small-scale health and patient trends. As they are situated on the front lines of patient care, nurse informaticists are especially suited for playing a greater role in health care planning and decision-making.
Nurses with higher education levels are better prepared to meet the fast-moving and frequently challenging nature of health care today. The online RN to Bachelor of Science in Nursing and online Master of Science in Nursing at the University of Saint Mary provide you with the nursing knowledge and critical-thinking skills required to succeed in today’s nursing environment. To find out more, request more information or call us at 877-307-4915 to speak to an admissions advisor. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
Emerging trends in nursing
RNs embrace roles beyond the bedside.
Seun Ross, DNP, MSN, CRNP-F, NP-C, NEA-BC, is the director of Nursing Practice and Work Environment at the American Nurses Association (ANA). She’s published and lectured on numerous topics, including evidence-based practice, workforce management, RN work environment, competency, and mentoring novice RNs. Ross keeps looking ahead to what’s next in nursing, and she shared with us some of her thoughts on emerging roles and technology. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
What are the current trends in nursing?
Seun Ross
There continues to be substantial movement to community-based care; increasing numbers of RNs are in public and community health and practicing care coordination in the community. Nurses are opening businesses to help manage patients and working for Fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola. More nurses are innovating—Johnson & Johnson has a great program, and ANA is advancing nurse-led innovation. It’s also exciting to see that more nurses are stepping into the political arena. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
What brought about these changes?
Community-based nursing and the tech boom began ramping up in the late 1990s and early 2000s. To counter nursing shortages, electronic intensive care units (E-ICUs) were established, mostly in rural areas, to enable out-of-state nurses to monitor patients remotely via video camera. That’s when hospitals and other healthcare facilities started to look to robotics and machines for some nursing tasks, like stocking rooms and even monitoring patients.
Do you see robots doing more nursing tasks?
There’s a push for more automated caregivers like robots,machines, and artificial intelligence, all of which should be viewed as assistive to nursing and not a replacement. There are robots that can lift and turn patients, which canbe helpful to nurses. But these machines lack the intuition of a nurse, who, for example, can assess a clinical situation and use critical thinking to determine a course of action. Just because some tasks can be done by machines or robots doesn’t mean they should be. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
How is technology playing a role in healthcare outside of the hospital setting?
We’re seeing significant changes in how healthcare is administered. There are pop-up clinics in malls (different from clinics within drugstores) where a patient can walk in and be seen by a nurse practitioner for a small fee. These clinics have virtually no equipment.
The technology is so advanced that a scan immediately takes heart rate and rhythm and other vital signs. Also, as the patient talks to the provider, the whole conversation is transcribed into the patient’s record. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
Wearables like Fitbit and others have given consumers the opportunity to take better care of themselves, but these devices also benefit advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs). Consumers can monitor and send their vital signs directly to their APRN in real time (and it also gives the clinician the option to remotely monitor patients).
What are other opportunities for nurses?
For nurses who want to work in communities, I encouragepublic health nursing. It’s a field that gives nurses several options, not just working inschools, butthe opportunity to travel the United States or even the world and make a huge impact. Forthose who want to tap into their entrepreneurial spirit, concierge healthcare is booming. APRNs and RNs meet clients/patients wherever they are tocare for them. Originally startedas a service for the wealthy, now it’s in rural areas as a mechanism to increase access to care. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
How can nurses explore these trends?
It’s a multipronged approach. Nursing schools should expand their community health education to prepare nurses for these trends and shift the focus from disease management to concentrate on partnering with patientsto achieve wellness. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
There’s a common misconception that you must practice in a hospital before anything else, but that’s not true. Follow your interests. Do lots of reading, and not just nursing publications, but include Forbes and Modern Healthcare. Get plugged into philanthropic organizations that focus on healthcare and, of course, ANA. Having diversity of thought when contemplating your nursing career is essential. NURS 3101 – Issues and Trends in Nursing Essays and Exams.
