Patient Education and Health

Nursing Practicum: Learning Objectives and Timeline

As a future primary care provider seeking NP board certification, one of my primary areas of focus will be how to enhance my patients' understanding of preventative medicine. This directly relates to DNP Essential VII: of "Clinical Prevention and Population Health for Improving the Nation's Health" (The Essentials, 20016, p.15). The United States has seen a dramatic rise in chronic illnesses rooted in poor lifestyle choices such as diabetes and heart disease. Through my practicum experience, my first learning objective is the ability to more effectively engage with patients and express the need to achieve health-related goals in layperson's terms. I also seek to work with patients to create a plan for healthy living that they view as reasonable and achievable, given that patients are often intimidated by the need for lifestyle changes.

This also related to my Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Project which specifically focuses on the question: "Does patient education reduce the incidence of continued hypertension in hypertensive patients?" Given that hypertension is a lifestyle-related illness associated with poor dietary and exercise choices, there is a need for the patient to personally take action to rectify the condition through small, daily measures to improve his or her health. According to the CDC (2017), hypertension remains poorly controlled in 70% of hypertensive patients, which suggests a need for a new approach to patient education ("High Blood Pressure," 2015, par.1). I will seek to further explore different approaches as part of my project.

The need to review evidence-based medicine in my fields of specialty also relates to my proposed project, area of specialization, and my desire to obtain ambulatory care certification in the future. This is encompassed in DNP Essential III of "Clinical Scholarship and Analytical Methods for Evidence-Based Practice" (The Essentials, 2006, p.11). Working in a high-stress environment such as ambulatory care means that the nurse must be able to think clearly and apply methods that are based in evidence-based research, not instinct alone, when treating patients. This goal of exploring and better using evidence-based research, however, also relates to my focus on hypertension in patients, given the amount of conflicting literature on the subject in regards to the best combination of diet and exercise to use along with drug treatment to mitigate the seriousness of the disorder. In both an ambulatory and a primary care context, I must learn how to work with other healthcare providers as part of a team to attend to the complex and diverse needs of patients. Evidence-based research provides an important common ground to do so. As noted by Stevens (2013) "To affect better patient outcomes, new knowledge must be transformed into clinically useful forms, effectively implemented across the entire care team within a systems context, and measured in terms of meaningful impact on performance and health outcomes" (par. 1). Particularly in the context of my own project, I seek to foster the creation of new knowledge that will be of use to patients with a disorder which has resisted many current treatment approaches.