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Improving Patient Care through Continued Education

Alexandra C. Zitsch

School of Nursing, James Madison University

NSG 471: Leadership and Management in Health Care

Professor Garman

March 4, 2023
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Improving Patient Care through Continued Education

Inova Fairfax is currently a magnet hospital and as an employee, it is easy to see why.

Inova embodies many of the magnet components, but one that I see regularly within my specific

unit is new knowledge, innovation, and improvement. Not only is the Neonatal Intensive Care

Unit (NICU) consistently providing nurses with the opportunity to improve processes and

standards within the unit, but it also provides countless classes for continued education.

Continued education contributes greatly to quality of patient care and, surprisingly

enough, it also contributes to the psychological wellbeing of nurses. A study conducted in 2018

found that by becoming a lifelong learner, nurses have the ability to strengthen their memory,

become more autonomous, and ultimately feel more fulfilled day in and day out (Narushima et

al., 2018). Most people believe that as NICU nurses, we are predominantly focused on the

infants, and from an outside perspective, that may appear to be true. What people do not realize,

however, is that although the infant is our patient, in some ways, so are the parents. Every single

parent whose infant ends up in the NICU experiences some level of trauma. As the parent’s

journey in the NICU continues to progress, they experience various situations that have the

potential to add to that trauma, so although the neonate is our patient, the parent’s wellbeing is

also our concern.

The NICU recently offered a class that was called Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders

(PMADs), and this class specifically focused on the trauma that both mom and dad experiences

and how that trauma can manifest in different ways. The class taught us about the most common

types of PMADs and how to identify those signs and symptoms. Additionally, it went through

the different ways to approach parents if you feel as though they may be experiencing some of

these disorders. The great thing about a class like that is that it introduces a different perspective
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to the field and allows nurses like myself to continue to grow. There are actions and comments

that parents may have made before taking that class that probably did not phase me, but now that

I have been exposed to PMAD’s, I am more likely to accurately analyze whether or not those

comments or actions are more concerning. Continued education courses like these sometimes

allow you to address the issue yourself, but other times they give you the skills necessary to

recognize issues and order a consult, which can be just as important.

Magnet focuses on new knowledge, innovation, and improvement as one of its main

components, and by providing continuing education courses, that is exactly what Inova is doing.

Nursing school gives us a solid foundation of basic things that we need to know once we become

RN’s, and isn’t that exactly what the NCLEX tells us? The NCLEX tests our minimum

competency level as nurses, but the majority of what we learn comes from our unit. In theory,

once a nurse graduates from nursing school, they can only continue to increase their knowledge

through the opportunities provided to them by their unit/hospital or through voluntarily taking

continuing education courses. That is why magnet focuses on new knowledge, innovation, and

improvement, because if it did not, there would never be any progress in world of healthcare.

The NICU not only provides us with optional seminars and classes, but it also has different

committees in place that nurses can join according to their interests.

When I graduated from nursing school and began applying to hospitals, I did not know

what to expect. Once I was hired into a level IV NICU at a magnet hospital, that became all I

knew. I was not familiar with what other hospital had to offer, so I was not able to recognize and

appreciate all the opportunities that I had at my fingertips. The research shows that magnet

hospitals have better outcomes among nurses and patients, and ultimately provide a better

working environment for nurses (Rodríguez-García et al., 2020). By being a part of this
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experience, I am now able to understand why magnet is so sought after and that by working

towards new knowledge, improvement, and innovation, what we are actually doing is working

towards better conditions for not only the patient, but healthcare workers as well.
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References

Narushima, M., Liu, J., & Diestelkamp, N. (2018). Lifelong learning in active ageing discourse:

Its conserving effect on wellbeing, health and vulnerability. Ageing & Society, 38(4),

651-675. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X16001136

Rodríguez-García, M. C., Márquez-Hernández, V. V., Belmonte-García, T., Gutiérrez-Puertas,

L., & Granados-Gámez, G. (2020). Original research: How magnet hospital status affects

nurses, patients, and organizations: A systematic review. The American Journal of

Nursing, 120(7), 28–38. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000681648.48249.16