Effective supervision: principles and practices

¶ … Supervision

Education is essential in the nursing community. The optimal way to learn nursing is with a hands-on method taught by a proficient nursing supervisor (Saarikoski, Isoaho, Warne, & Leino-Kilpi 2007).The concept is to have an intelligent and experienced individual presiding over the student nurse as they perform their duties on patients. This allows for observation to take place in an environment where the student nurse is obtaining practical experience and the teacher is available to intervene if necessary (Saarikoski et al., 2007). Researchers have found several new methods to put this into action. Successful techniques defined to assist nursing supervisors are mainly determined by the CLES scale which is an acronym for the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and nurse teacher evaluation scale (Johansson et al., 2010).

The CLES is a psychometric scale which is based on interviews and studies of both nursing supervisors and students. Invention of the CLES has led to new criteria to help measure nurse supervision (Lindgren, Athlin 2009). In particular, one study found that currently defined supervision is not adequate because nurses are not as personal as they need to be (Lindgren, Athlin 2009). Therefore, nursing supervisors need to institute methods of teaching in which the students appear more approachable to their patients and attempt to know them on a personal level. In the same study by Lindgren and Athlin it is noted that typically supervision takes place on a "one-to-one basis." The study suggests that supervision over a group of student nurses would be more useful however. According to the findings, group work was shown to give students superior outlets of understanding nursing and to prepare themselves for upcoming events. In addition, students had an easier time of increasing their strengths; both personal and professional (Lindgren, Athlin 2009). This is largely due to having the support and criticism of a supervisor as well as the numerous student nurses each nurse worked with.

One way in which nurses can document support of supervision is through the aforementioned CLES scale. Through various interviews conducted of both students and teachers, the CLES comes to conclusions about nursing education techniques and documents them in a quantitative manner. In addition to this method of documentation, Advance care planning or ACP research has been conducted to determine how nurses could better treat and teach others how to treat aging adults suspected to soon lose capacity or communication abilities (Jane Seymour, Kathryn Almack, & Sheila Kennedy 2010). Much alike CLES research, ACP findings have shown that a more personal approach with patients is key to their well-being as they feel as if the nurse has an emotional investment in their health as opposed to seeing them as "just another patient" (Seymour, et, al. 2010). Nurses in the field of palliative are proven to improve the quality of life a patient who is near death. This illustrates the importance behind not only adequate nursing education in a medical and physical sense, but also the importance of learning proper social skills and positive communication between nurses and patients. Documentation on proper nurse supervision techniques is essential to bettering the medical community as a whole. Therefore, it is great that research such as the CLES and ACP exist.

An important factor in delegating someone to any position is trust. In nursing, trust is essential because people's lives are in nurses in hands. Therefore, a supervising nurse needs to have ultimate trust the nurses they teach in order to delegate and assign them to patients properly. In addition, supervising nurses must have complete trust in themselves and their ability to delegate accurately. Otherwise, they may assign an ill-prepared resident nurse who does not have the proper experience or skills to assist their patients on their own. Lanette Anderson, who has been in the nursing profession for over thirty years, stresses that delegating should not be solely based on the amount of years a nurse has been in training as that may have little to do with the nurses' readiness (Anderson 2008). Instead, proper documentation of the nurse in training should be reviewed carefully in order to determine if they have achieved the educational objectives necessary to become a registered nurse (Anderson 2008). The easiest way to gauge whether a nurse in training has met the qualifications and standards to become a full-fledged nurse is to have the procedures and policies of the agency clearly defined and outlined before training takes place. After training, evaluation then consists of analyzing whether the nurse has completed the defined policies. This allows for a standardized way in which to delegate.