Journal of Nursing Regulation最新文献

Background

Recruiting foreign-educated nurses (FENs) is a strategy to reduce staffing shortages of registered nurses (RNs) practicing in long-term care (LTC) in the United States. However, little is known about how FENs compare to U.S.-educated nurses (USENs) in their innate abilities and skills, also known as human capital.

Purpose

To compare human capital among FENs and USENs practicing in LTC.

Methods

This cross-sectional study used data from the 2018 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses to compare human capital scores between FENs and USENs. Human capital scores consisting of highest nursing qualification, skill-based certifications, number of state licensures, years of experience, multi-state employment, and multilingual ability were constructed and compared using analysis of covariance. Covariates were race, ethnicity, marriage/partnership, adults at home, children at home, direct patient care, and practice scope.

Results

The sample included 1,887 RNs (92.8% USENs and 7.2% FENs). Most RNs were female (92.3%), were aged ≥50 years (56.4%), were non-Hispanic White (78.3%), were married/partnered (68.0%), provided direct care (44%), and had full practice scope (71.7%). FENs versus USENs had a higher proportion reporting full scope of practice (80.7% vs. 71.0%, p = .0155). The mean human capital score for the total sample was 9.8 ± 1.3. Human capital scores were higher among FENs (M = 11.3, SD = 1.2) than USENs (M = 9.6, SD = 1.3, p < .0001).

Conclusion

FENs bring a higher level of human capital to LTC settings, which suggests that they have an increased capacity to provide the needed person-centered care to positively impact care quality and improve outcomes in LTC.

Background

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a broad group of technologies that are increasingly commonplace in everyday life; however, they have had only limited application in regulatory practice.

Purpose

The present study explored nursing regulators’ perceptions of the role and value of AI in regulation and potential barriers and facilitators to the uptake and implementation of AI.

Methods

Three facilitated focus group sessions with 28 representatives of regulators from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States were conducted. Content analysis of verbatim transcripts was completed.

Results

Key themes that emerged included (a) interest in how AI could enhance sustainability and improve cost-effectiveness of certain regulatory processes and (b) concerns regarding how the term “artificial intelligence” itself could be problematic. Specific barriers to the uptake of AI in regulation included concerns regarding codification of system bias, negative public perception, and lack of clarity around accountability for decision-making. Facilitators to implementation included enhancing the consistency of processes and improving the decision-making and utility in supporting trend analyses and audit functions.

Conclusion

Additional work in exploring how best to incorporate evolving AI technologies in regulatory practice—and what they should be named—is required, but these findings suggest that promising outcomes may lie ahead.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic placed intense pressure on nursing regulatory bodies to ensure an adequate healthcare workforce while maintaining public safety.

Purpose

Our objectives were to analyze regulatory bodies’ responses during the pandemic, examine how nursing regulators conceptualize the public interest during a public health crisis, and explore the influence of a public health crisis on the balancing of regulatory principles. We aimed to develop a clearer understanding of regulating during a crisis by identifying themes within regulatory responses.

Methods

We conducted a qualitative comparative case study examining the pandemic responses of eight nursing regulators in three Canadian provinces and three U.S. states. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 19 representatives of nursing regulatory bodies and 206 publicly available documents and analyzed thematically.

Results

Five themes were constructed from the data: (1) risk-based responses to reduce regulatory burden; (2) agility and flexibility in regulatory pandemic responses; (3) working with stakeholders for a systems-based approach; (4) valuing consistency in regulatory approaches across jurisdictions; and (5) the pandemic as a catalyst for innovation. Specifically, we identified that the meaning of “public interest” in the context of high workforce demand was a key consideration for regulators.

Conclusion

Our results demonstrate the intensity of effort involved in nursing regulatory responses and the significant contribution of nursing regulation to the healthcare system’s pandemic response. Our results also indicate a shift in thinking around broader public interest issues, beyond the conduct and competence of individual nurses, to include pressing societal issues. Regulators are beginning to grapple with these longer-term issues and policy tensions.

Management of the COVID-19 pandemic required healthcare leaders and frontline workers to rapidly innovate and adjust to a new reality that has forever transformed nursing education and practice. Throughout the pandemic, key stakeholders in Alabama lobbied for transformations in clinical training practice that ultimately improved students’ exposure to clinical environments and alleviated the pressure on practicing nurses and other healthcare workers during pandemic hospitalization surges. The present article highlights the key partners and regulatory innovations that led to these successes in Alabama.

Background

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, as clinical site restrictions were implemented, education programs leading to licensed practical nurse/licensed vocational nurse (LPN/LVN) degrees increasingly relied on virtual simulation-based experiences to provide clinical training to their students. However, scant evidence exists regarding the extent of this change and the various modalities employed by LPN/LVN programs across the United States.

Purpose

We sought to identify the degree to which virtual clinical simulation was adopted by LPN/LVN education programs during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to address clinical site restrictions. In addition, we hoped to identify the practices and activities that educators included under the broad umbrella definition of virtual clinical simulation.

Methods

All active U.S. prelicensure LPN/LVN nursing education programs were contacted in September 2020. Program leaders were asked to estimate the proportion of clinical hours completed in virtual clinical simulation before the pandemic and the proportion anticipated for the fall 2020 term. Descriptive statistics were generated, with repeated measures analysis of covariance applied to evaluate the average change in virtual simulation within programs stratified by reported clinical restrictions.

Results

Representatives from 265 LPN/LVN programs in 44 U.S. jurisdictions responded to the survey. Responding programs significantly increased the proportion of clinical hours completed in virtual clinical simulation between fall 2019 (M = 10.7, SD = 15.3) and fall 2020 (M = 35.3, SD = 27.6, p < .001). Furthermore, there was an interaction between clinical site restrictions and term, with a more pronounced uptick in virtual simulation usage among programs that indicated they found identifying clinical sites “very difficult” (M = 41.1, SD = 28.9) relative to those who found it “somewhat more difficult” (M = 23.9, SD = 18.8, p < .001). Programs adopted a range of modalities, including simply watching videos and participating in virtual or augmented reality, online software packages, or other forms of screen-based learning.

Conclusion

As the adoption of virtual simulation increases, clear definitions of what constitutes clinical virtual simulation must be established. Additionally, rigorous inquiry to support evidence-based regulatory guidelines is needed.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on prelicensure nursing education, leading to widespread disruptions that may have implications for nursing students’ learning and engagement outcomes. Understanding how the rapid shift to online and simulation-based teaching methods has affected new graduates’ clinical preparedness is critical to ensure patient safety moving forward.

Purpose

To assess the impact of institutional, academic, and demographic characteristics on prelicensure nursing students’ academic, initial postgraduation, and early career outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

We conducted a mixed-methods longitudinal study focused on prelicensure registered nurse (RN) students entering the core of their didactic and clinical nursing coursework during the pandemic. This study uses a combination of real-time student and faculty self-report data, including externally validated instruments, within and end-of-program standardized test scores, and focus group findings. Various statistical methods, ranging from simpler descriptive and non-parametric methods to Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models and detailed textual analysis, are applied to assess student, faculty, and institution-level data.

Results

The final sample includes more than 1,100 student and faculty participants affiliated with 51 prelicensure RN programs located across 27 states. Leveraging more than 4,000 course observations collected from fall 2020 to spring 2022 and supplemented by the rich personal narratives of over 60 focus group participants, this study illuminates the breadth, scale, and ever-evolving nature of prelicensure RN programs’ efforts to maintain the continuity of nursing students’ education during the public health crisis. In doing so, it captures the many ways in which nursing administrators, faculty, and students sought to address the unparalleled challenges they confronted on a day-to-day basis. In particular, the findings provide critical insights into the efficacy of the changes nursing programs made to their course delivery formats to adjust to the confluence of rapidly evolving federal, state, and private restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Conclusion

This study stands as the most comprehensive assessment of prelicensure nursing education in the United States since the onset of COVID-19. It extends knowledge by linking potential deficiencies in students’ didactic and clinical education during the pandemic and their early career preparedness, clinical competence, and the patient safety implications therein.

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing regulatory bodies (NRBs) worldwide adopted a variety of measures to bolster the nursing workforce and ensure patient safety.

Purpose

To examine the plethora of actions undertaken by the global nursing community in response to the public health emergency so that NRBs can increase transparency and better prepare for future crises.

Methods

In early 2021, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing developed an online survey to capture data on the global regulatory response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey focused on five specific domains: (a) governance, (b) telehealth practices, (c) nurse mobility, (d) prelicensure education, and (e) the disciplinary process. The instrument was translated into 11 languages before being deployed to 150 non-U.S. regulatory representatives. Frequencies and proportions were generated for all fixed-item responses, and descriptive content analyses were applied to translated open-text responses.

Results

Regulators representing 27 jurisdictions provided valid responses to the survey. Most jurisdictions reported that components of nursing education were adapted in some way during the pandemic. More than half (53.8%, n = 14) of respondents indicated that changes were made to clinical and didactic curricula to ensure students graduated on time. About one-third (30.8%, n = 8) of representatives revealed that their jurisdiction had made changes to telehealth regulations, with many granting telehealth-specific nursing licenses. Most jurisdictions (88.5%, n = 23) also reported fewer or about the same number of regulatory complaints compared to before the pandemic.

Conclusions

The results of this study highlight the range of actions nursing regulators worldwide adopted, which may be drawn upon to inform best practices to ensure jurisdictions are ready for the next public health emergency.