IOM Report on Nursing Education the IOM

¶ … IOM report on nursing education

The IOM report will likely increase the tendency to incorporate evidence-based practice in nursing, particularly since it insists that treatment decisions should be based on evaluating most recent scientific evidence and on evaluating the quality of that evidence, as well as the medical personnel should know both the advantages and disadvantages of referring individuals to a certain type of treatment.

It recommends that clinical guidelines should be extracted from thorough literature and scientific reviews that identify, investigate review, and select the most authoritative and reliable studies that are pertinent to the field and help nurses decide which type of treatment to adopt and which type of treatment to refrain from adopting in connection with certain diseases / conditions as well as the types, quantities and categories of drugs, devices, and other healthcare instruments and services.

Putting forth proposed standards regarding adoption of scientific evidence, the IOM recommended that clinical decisions be based on scientific evidence that has been reviewed by a multidisciplinary team of experts in the particular fields, that this evidence considers important patient subgroups, as well as providing a clear explanation of care options and expected health outcomes amongst other factors. Nursing education, therefore, will likely be impacted by the report to the end that it will focus more on teaching nurses the techniques and skills to independently conducting research, critically evaluating research, and implementing their own research.

The IOM report may also reinforce tendency to focus on patient-specific and oriented nursing since it states that doctor and caregiving personnel should choose the best course based on the individual's needs and preferences.

Finally, the IOM advocated wider adoption of electronic health records and computer-aided clinical decision making likely leading to greater emphasis of computer skills in future nurse education.

The impact of the IOM report on nursing practice and how you would change practice to meet the goals of the IOM report

Nursing practice will likely become more evidence-based as well as showing proclivity to any of its many approaches that include an evidence-based component. Examples here are advance practice nursing that embraces three dynamics: 1. The specialization or provision of care for a specific population of patients with complex and usually unpredictable health needs; 2. The possession of knowledge, skills, and research that exceeds the traditional scope of nursing practice and particularly nursing practice in this specific field; and 3, advancement, which includes specialization and expansion in the field (Joel, 2009). The three conditions of advance practice nursing are interrelated and focus on the four primary conditions of nursing: health, environment, patient, and nursing all of which are stressed in the IOM report.

In short, the IOM report may well lead to nurses developing an innovative approach, focusing on continuous development of skills, acquitting synthesis of experience, knowledge, and skills, and working on maintaining a holistic, patient-centered focus.

Nurses will also become more multi-disciplinary in knowledge and practice since their research and critical thinking will impel them to understand and investigate a plethora of directly and indirectly related fields.

Since evidence-based nursing is already a huge component of nursing, I would not place more emphasis on that. Instead, I would place greater focus on teaching the rudiments of computer research, as well as teaching student nurses the basic skills of SPSS and how to read and interpret results. This is often an overlooked component and yet, if nurses are expected to become critical contributors of medical research, an important one.

The impact of the IOM report on the nurse's role as leader

By becoming more evidence-based, the nurse becomes a leader in her field in that, instead of nurses following authority opinion as was previously the case, the caregiver now bases his or her practice on scientific evidence, using research skills to collect and appraise her evidence.

Critical thinking and knowledge of current research is particularly important for the primary adult care nurse since increasingly complex decision-making situations call for more reflection on the caregiver's part (Salehi et al., 2007). In a more indirect manner, critical thinking also provides the nurse with greater skills and ability to work in social and multidisciplinary groups. Nurses are expected to effectively work with a multidisciplinary healthcare team in their provision of nursing care (NMC, 2009). Acquisition of critical thinking compels nurses to investigate and acquire the vocabulary, knowledge, and understanding of related fields other than their own, thus enabling them to better participate in communication with diverse doctors at appropriate times, to intervene if necessary, to form a more cohesive working group, and to achieve their nursing task with more skills and understanding, precisely since this skill is an extraction of a mongrel of knowledge from different professions. Working in this reciprocal inter-disciplinary relationship also enhances respect for the nurse from other medical professionals and augments co-operation and reciprocity.