Competency-based project to review community/public health curricula.

Changes in the delivery of community/public health (C/PH) nursing have challenged nursing educators to seek innovative ways to ensure that their educational programs produce competent entry-level practitioners. This article describes how public health professionals and faculty from eight regional colleges and universities in Southeastern Wisconsin came together to better understand both what C/PH nursing content was being taught in the region, and the extent to which that content was aligned with the Public Health Nurse Competencies defined by the Quad Council in 2004. Based on self-reporting by nursing school faculty as well as a separate mapping of course objectives into the competency areas, the project found that the curricula of the participating colleges and universities adequately addressed most of the competencies in the Quad Council domains one through six. Competencies in domains seven (financial planning/management skills) and eight (leadership/systems thinking skills) were not, however, adequately addressed and plans were subsequently developed to fill those gaps. In addition to helping each institution identify strengths and gaps in its own curriculum, the project provided an unprecedented opportunity for both public health professionals and academics to build relationships, share best practices, and exchange resources.

Surveillance as a nursing intervention: use in community nursing centers.

The purpose of this multisite retrospective descriptive study was to describe the nature of surveillance as a nursing intervention within 3 urban community nursing centers (CNCs). Secondary analysis of clinical data was conducted for clients seen in 1995. The CNCs used the Automated Community Health Information System (Lundeen & Friedbacher, 1994), a relational database. Nursing diagnoses and interventions were described according to the Omaha Classification System (Martin & Scheet, 1992b). The sample included 1,506 unduplicated clients who received care during 5,248 encounters and was characterized by more adults 20 years and older (56.1%), women (71.0%), and African Americans (77.2%). The age range of the clients was infancy to 95 years (M = 29.90 years). Surveillance was a significant nursing intervention making up 27.1% of all interventions (7,557 of 27,898), and 68.5% of the clients received surveillance. There was a significant relation between the provision of surveillance and age range, chi 2 (5, N = 1,427) = 211.96, p < or = .001, V = .385, and gender, chi 2 (1, N = 1,501) = 17.90, p < or = .001, phi = .109. Clients who were 40 years and older and who were women were more likely to receive surveillance. Surveillance was provided most often for the diagnoses of circulation and nutrition. Health promotion and disease prevention diagnoses were more likely to prompt surveillance. The provision of surveillance was linked to age and developmental risk factors.

The intervention of surveillance across classification systems.

PURPOSE: To analyze the intervention of surveillance across nursing classification systems. DATA SOURCES: Published literature and book chapters. DATA SYNTHESIS: Surveillance is a clearly established nursing intervention used in multiple practice settings and in response to many diagnoses. The literature and definitions are divided into surveillance of populations and surveillance of individuals. CONCLUSIONS: General agreement exists on the process of surveillance, but not on whether there is a time element to surveillance. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Research is needed on outcomes of surveillance and best practices established. The similarity in definitions of surveillance may allow comparison of outcomes when the diagnosis and practice setting are the same, regardless of the classification systems.