Developing a postgraduate professional education framework for emergency nursing: a co-design approach.

BACKGROUND: Hospital and university service providers invest significant but separate resources into preparing registered nurses to work in the emergency department setting. This results in the duplication of both curricula and resource investment in the health and higher education sectors. This paper describes an evidence-based co-designed study with clinical-academic stakeholders from hospital and university settings. METHODS: The study was informed by evidence-based co-design, using emergency nursing as an exemplar. Eighteen hours of co-design workshops were completed with 21 key clinical-academic stakeholders from hospital and university settings. RESULTS: Outcomes were matrices synchronising professional and regulatory imperatives of postgraduate nursing coursework; mutually-shaped curriculum content, teaching approaches and assessment strategies relevant for postgraduate education; a new University-Industry Academic Integration Framework; five agreed guiding principles of postgraduate curriculum development for university-industry curriculum co-design; and a Graduate Certificate of Emergency Nursing curriculum exemplar. CONCLUSION: Industry-academic service provider co-design can increase the relevance of postgraduate specialist courses in nursing, strengthening the nexus between both entities to advance learning and employability. The study developed strategies and exemplars for future use in any mutually determined academic-industry education partnership.

Understanding compassion literacy in nursing through a clinical compassion cafe.

This article presents a method of reconnecting and reaffirming with nurses the importance of compassion in health care by using a clinical compassion cafe, which describes nine steps that provide a forum to reaffirm clinicians' core values. This process has the potential to engage clinical staff in a different modality removed from the usual didactic approaches.

The establishment of structures and processes for the safe and effective clinical placement of nursing students.

Quality education is essential to ensure the continuous provision of safe and competent health professionals entering the workforce. It is dependent on students experiencing an effective clinical placement. This paper discusses a matrix of organisational frameworks, including structures and processes applicable to the supervision of students' clinical learning by health professionals that potentially reduces patients to risk. The matrix is discussed through an analysis of the following: firstly, the legislative structures that regulate the discipline of nursing; secondly the regulatory structures within health sectors and higher education institutions for example, Deeds of Agreement and curriculum documents, and; thirdly those requisite processes, including communication between higher education institutions and within health sectors that ensure understanding of structures and accordingly adequate preparation of staff to undertake supervision. Safe and competent practice is reliant on clearly articulated structures and operationalising processes between the health service sector and higher education institutions that can assist staff and students meet requisite standards of practice.