The project will involve the addition of online Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycles along with reflective journaling of the experience of both faculty and community health nursing students. Currently Community health nursing students engage with vulnerable populations on a semester basis, using the nursing process to develop priority interventions related to health promotion. At this time, there is no consistency of activities from one semester to another. Each new semester starts over with the population and the possibility of repetitive interventions that may or may not be beneficial.
A key component of nursing is critical reasoning and problem solving. These skills are essential for designing, coordinating and managing care. These competencies are identified as essential of a baccalaureate nurse that also include quality improvement, patient safety, high quality care and evidence based practice (AACN, 2015). Working with vulnerable patient populations, nurses develop population interventions that the populations believe are important. Improving the health of vulnerable populations can decrease health related deaths; decrease emergency room use (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016). The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) quality improvement tool is a standard for quality improvement (Deming Institute,2018). Using the PDSA cycle is a problem solving process allows the students to continually critical think and reevaluate interventions and patient outcomes. The PDSA will allow students to continue building change in a particular community in the area. The cycle can continue with subsequent semesters of community health students working with the same populations, rather than starting over each semester. This can allow to build change among the community. By using the PDSA tool the nursing students will learn about improvement science with vulnerable populations.
A component of working in the community is service learning. Community health student nurses engage with the population groups to not only learn how nurses interact with the community but also to build relationships with the group and provide a needed service related to health promotion and health prevention. Service learning as a teaching/learning strategy integrates meaningful community service with instruction, reflection, and reciprocity that enriches the learning experience and strengthens community engagement (Bridges, Davidson, Odegard, Maki, & Tomkowiak, 2011).
Building community partnerships with public health and nonprofit entities for a service learning experience can also be extrapolated to provide health services to vulnerable populations.
For the engagement of student learning, the practice of reflective journaling has been found to be an important tool. Furr, Lane, Serefica and Hodge (2015), in an analysis of service learning in the nursing curriculum, found reflective journaling to be a common component for student learning. Its use increases student awareness, promotes an understanding of social responsibility, and an appreciation of the IPE team when working collaboratively.
Description of Applied Learning Assignment
- Develop a nursing care plan for a specific community population.
- Utilize the Nursing care plan as a working document to engage community members in viable health prevention or health promotion activities based on the care plan and priorities identified by the community and nursing students. Using a PDSA format each clinical group will decide what action is the priority for the assigned population.
3. Each clinical group will use the CANVAS tool to develop a module for each community group. This would allow for continued development of the nursing care plan for each population and revision of each PDSA cycle. This initial module will become the building block for subsequent PDSA cycle each semester nursing students interact with the same community group. By using technology to continue the quality improvement interventions for the community, the community can improve by building on previously implemented health promotion and health prevention activities rather than beginning each semester with a new student group.
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