Nurses are Knowledge Workers - Essay Example

Consider the fact that nurses are knowledge workers; how does nursing move from a task-completion focus to an outcomes-achievement focus? Name: Institution: Clinical expertise is a hybrid of theoretical task completion-focus and practical knowledge. In nursing care, expertise in clinical nursing is a fundamental provision to quality of care. Expertise in clinical nursing is central to the provision of quality service in patient care (McHugh & Lake 2010). A range of research on the factors that contribute to clinical nursing expertise has largely focused on individual nurse features or characteristics to the omission of relative factors.

In order to provide quality service clinical nurses must focus on outcomes of their patients’ care instead of task completion. Nurses must, therefore, master their practice, actions and procedures to ensure that they offer the best services to their clients (McGonigle & Mastrian 2015). Like other professions, nurses also gain experience through practice. Nursing experience leads to nursing knowledge and wisdom in judgment of the daily nursing practice (McHugh & Lake 2010). As clinical nurses apply more theoretical practice and stay longer in the field, they tend to develop more experience that come with knowledge and wisdom in judgment.

The changing technology and practice in nursing also ensures that nurses must keep up-to-date with the current practice trends. McGonigle & Mastrian (2015) identifies five possible clinical nursing expertise levels these include novice nurses, advanced nursing beginner, competent nurses, proficient, and expert nurses. These levels ensure that nurses develop from task completion focus to outcome achievement focus (McHugh & Lake 2010). In reference to McGonigle & Mastrian (2015), novice nurses are those still in nursing school.

Advanced beginners use learned rules and procedures to guide their daily practice actions as required for every immediate care situation. They are completion focused. Competent nurses are outcome and task-oriented (McGonigle & Mastrian 2015). They deliberately arrange their work in structures that ensure goal or outcome achievement. They can respond to several clinical situations but lack adequate ability to identify overall-picture situations. Proficient nurses are also the outcome-oriented and perceive clinical situations as a whole.

They have more capable of recognizing and responding to changing care circumstances. Expert nurses are spot-on. They can identify unexpected clinical responses and can alert other nurses to potential problems their occurrence. They have intuitive grasps of whole situations. They are capable of accurately respond and diagnosing and without wasteful thought of fruitless possibilities (McHugh & Lake 2010). The superior performance often makes expert nurses consultants among other nurses and trusted.

References McGonigle, D. & Mastrian, K. (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett. (Chapter 7: Informatics Roles and the Knowledge Work of Nursing) McHugh, M. D., & Lake, E. T. (2010). Understanding clinical expertise: Nurse education, experience, and the hospital context. Research in Nursing & Health, 33(4), 276-287. doi:10.1002/nur.20388