Introduction
Medical students have been encouraged to focus on what they have learned and ensure that they improve their skills. One way is by reflecting on the various topics and analyzing their aspects to guarantee that one has understood the concepts and can utilize them in the working fields. Thus, the following reflection essay involves the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program for DNP-830. Moreover, it focuses on the competencies practiced in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (American Associations of Colleges of Nursing, 2019). Individuals use the reflection journal to help them analyze their professional skills and experiences in their course. Aspects such as strengths and weaknesses have can also be discovered using the reflective summaries. In this case, the reflective journal is used to help people think deeply about their learning and how they have achieved the various competencies established by AACN essentials.
Reflection
This reflective journal reveals the different approaches the institution has introduced to ensure that learners become more productive in the healthcare sector. For instance, the issue of medication errors has led to the deaths of many patients. Consequently, this reflective journey can help an individual focus on the different approaches such as training and teamwork to limit medication errors. Moreover, one can focus on the weekly reflections to ensure that they discover various factors about the nursing practices.
Typically everyone has strengths and weaknesses that can impact their performance. In this case, I have discovered my strengths, such as having excellent communication skills, which can help me interact with different people easily. Additionally, health care providers are encouraged to have good communication skills to allow them to interact with patients and learn about their different challenges (Arnold & Boggs, 2019). For instance, communicating with patients can enhance the patient-nurse relationship, which is vital. Teamwork is also critical in healthcare facilities as it can lead to improved performance and limit issues such as medication errors since the less-experienced professionals can learn from the experts.
Another strength I discovered involves having leadership traits. For instance, leaders are encouraged to be trustworthy to guarantee that the members can emulate them. Furthermore, a leader should be courageous and ready to be at the forefront of guiding others. Therefore, I have learned that I have these essential traits and can be of great significance in leadership. Nonetheless, I have realized that I have a weakness in time management. Therefore, I will focus on ways to improve my time-management skills to ensure that I can attend to all responsibilities and complete them on time. Different resources such as books and peer-reviewed articles have also been of great importance as they provided adequate information about various topics. The reports have analyzed the healthcare practices that professionals can exercise to ensure that they provide excellent patient care.
Achieving personal goals is another vital aspect encouraged in learning institutions and working environments. The objectives enable an individual to work harder and guarantee that the aims are attained. Thus, I focused on setting goals that involved achieving better results in all courses and projects. The purposes have enabled me to interact with different learners and gain more information regarding the various concepts. The DNP course objectives have been used to encourage learners to advance their skills by learning about their professional practice. Thus, these aims have played a significant role in making the learning successful. New abilities that have influenced optimal learning outcomes involve researching information from different databases such as PubMed and NCBI. Moreover, the experiences and learning in this course involved the following essentials.
Essential IV: Information Systems/Technology and Patient Care Technology for the Improvement and Transformation of Health Care
Modern technology has been of great significance in the healthcare sector. Information systems have been introduced to guarantee that patients can acquire excellent services. The DNP-830 has helped scholars learn about some of the approaches, such as introducing mobile apps and smartwatches used to improve patient’s health (Sadoughi et al., 2017). The introduction of e-health has also been of great significance since many healthcare workers are providing services to patients via the internet (Sadoughi et al., 2017). Moreover, the current pandemic has led to the limited movement of individuals, making it vital for clinicians to use e-health and ensure that patients improve their health.
The project and assignments in the course are designed to enable the learners to become more innovative and ensure that they can develop new ways that technology can be used to improve and transform health care. Projects involving information technology enable scholars to learn about the systems used in health care facilities to store medical records and limit issues such as medication errors and loss of patient’s data. AACN Essential IV shows that patient care technology has been developed by introducing new machines used in diagnosing different diseases. For example, advanced Magnetic Resonance Scanners with high magnetic fields have been introduced using modern technology. Thus, Essential IV is vital since it focuses on modern technology in healthcare and ways of improving and transforming the healthcare sector.
Essential V: Health Care Policy for Advocacy in Health Care
Essential V focuses on healthcare policy, which is vital as it involves the procedures that should be exercised to ensure that quality healthcare services are provided. Healthcare policy advocacy is also essential since people can learn about the regulations implemented by the government to protect healthcare professionals and patients. Scholars can focus on Essential V to learn about the importance of policies implemented in the healthcare sector. Hospitals have also developed their policies to guarantee that patient outcome is achieved. The course has also ensured that learners can learn how policymakers establish the laws and how they can impact different people. The assignments and discussions in the course have focused on healthcare policies. For instance, approaches to limit negligence in healthcare facilities have been designed. These regulations have been essential in decreasing issues such as medication errors, which are caused by carelessness.
Essential VI: Interprofessional Collaboration for Improving Patient and Population Health Outcomes
The DNP-830 has focused on the different ways that healthcare professionals can improve patient outcomes. For instance, interprofessional collaboration is one of the approaches encouraged to enable healthcare providers to provide excellent care. According to AACN Essential VI, the interprofessional partnership helps individuals develop better ways of dealing with different issues experienced by patients. Moreover, it enables physicians to formulate advanced strategies since different ideas can be acquired from various clinicians.
The assignments and discussions in the course focused on ways that teamwork can be used to improve the performance of individuals. Additionally, it demonstrated that interprofessional collaboration could lead to improved health outcomes. This discovery about cooperation has helped the nurse scholars to ensure that they can work with other team members in their work fields to develop healthcare services. Interprofessional collaboration is also vital since it enables healthcare providers from different professional backgrounds to work with families and patients. Therefore, the course has ensured that scholars can learn the different approaches that can be exercised to involve the families and the caregivers of a patient to improve their health (Fleming & Willgerodt, 2017). In most cases, a lack of excellent communication impacts the relationship between patients, families, and health care providers.
Scholars have been encouraged to improve how they interact with others to impact their performance in their occupation. Strategies to facilitate interprofessional collaboration have also been analyzed in the course. For instance, encouraging social interaction through team-building exercises and small events has been developed in many healthcare facilities. Having leadership encourage open communication and creativity is another approach that has been exercised in this course. Therefore, the different aspects that have been analyzed in AACN Essential VI have been of great significance to the scholars.
Conclusion
To conclude, the purpose of this DNP-830 reflection essay was to reveal the various aspects involved in the course. The report has analyzed the different practices discussed to allow learners to develop their skills and become more productive. Moreover, the reflective journal has revealed the objectives and competencies outlined in the AACN’s essentials and how they can be implemented to improve learners’ performance. For instance, using modern technology and practicing interprofessional collaboration are some of the aspects encouraged in the course. Therefore, the reflective essay is vital and can enable scholars to analyze what they have learned in the course.
References
Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2019). Interpersonal relationships e-book: professional communication skills for nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Fleming, R., & Willgerodt, M. A. (2017). Interprofessional collaborative practice and school nursing: A model for improved health outcomes. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 22(3), 2.
Sadoughi, F., Karami, M., Mousavi, G. A., & Karimi, A. (2017). The effect of information technology on healthcare improvement from clinicians’ perspective. Glob J Health Sci, 9(3), 128.