Growing the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Workforce Through Mentoring: A Scoping Review.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to highlight evidence specific to the neonatal nurse practitioner (NNP) workforce related to successful mentoring programs. Specifically, the authors of this article explored recent evidence of mentorship to improve job satisfaction and retention of the NNP workforce. BACKGROUND: NNPs are valuable members of neonatal healthcare team. Because of the aging NNP workforce, methods to recruit, train, mentor, develop, and retain new NNPs are imperative. METHODS: Using a quality appraisal tool from the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, articles were identified through electronic database searches using search terms related to mentoring, nurse practitioners, recruitment, and retention. Studies published in English between 2013 and 2023 were included. Peer-reviewed quantitative and qualitative articles were synthesized and critically appraised by 4 reviewers. RESULTS: The authors identified 46 articles with a focus on mentoring in nursing of which 12 articles include mentoring for nurse practitioners. Research indicates that mentoring relationships are valuable in many healthcare roles and professions. Evidence is limited indicating the impact of mentoring in the highly specialized role of the NNP. CONCLUSION: Mentoring is an invaluable component of professional nursing and counters incivility while advancing competency, job satisfaction, and retention. Additional research is needed regarding NNP-specific mentoring programs.

Incubating Collaboration for a Neonatal Scholars Writing Group.

One method to improve writing and scholarship is through the formation of writing teams. While not new, we will present our innovative strategy for creating an effective neonatal writing team for faculty and students. Tuckman's Model of Team Development was used to guide our group through the five stages of effective teams including forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning to develop an effective writing group. The application of this model facilitated a strong foundation for our writing group, the Neonatal Scholars Interest Group, through the intentional movements through developmental stages and the ability to sustain our writing group. Furthermore, the impact of our writing group, as a model, resulted in several other specialized writing groups within our school. Our writing group improved the knowledge and skills of nurse faculty and students in sustained writing efforts through successful scholarship dissemination, mentoring students, and advancing nursing education and practice.

Men in Female-Dominated Nursing Specialties.

While numbers of men in the nursing profession have slowly increased, men in female-dominated specialty areas have not changed. Male nurses and nursing students encounter gender bias and discrimination in certain specialty nursing environments. This has implications for the quality of care provided, parental engagement, and job satisfaction. By diversifying the nursing workforce, there is a potential to enhance patient comfort, improve satisfaction, and promote a more inclusive, creative, and patient-focused health care environment.

Academic Practice Partnerships: Improving Doctor of Nursing Practice Project Quality.

ABSTRACT: Doctor of nursing practice (DNP) projects with impactful health system outcomes can be a challenge for graduate students and graduate program faculty to develop. Rigorous DNP projects address patient and health system needs, meet programmatic requirements, and result in a portfolio of sustainable scholarship for DNP graduates. A strong academic-practice partnership may result in a greater likelihood of successful and impactful DNP projects. Our academic-practice partnership leaders developed a strategic approach to align health system priorities with DNP student project needs. This partnership has resulted in project innovation, increased clinical application, improved outcomes within the community, and enhanced project quality.

Mystery in the Crib: An Interactive Case Study Experience.

Nurses and nurse practitioners are often required to process vast amounts of information while caring for neonates. The ability to process available information, analyze relevance, and collaborate with others requires specialized knowledge and skills. Mystery in the Crib is an innovative, critical thinking activity where neonatal nurse practitioner students are presented clues in the form of historical, diagnostic, and clinical data. Students are required to critical appraisal available information, collaborate with others to develop a plan of care, and present findings and a plan of care. Students demonstrated an enhanced ability to synthesis relevant clinical information, effectively collaborate, and develop comprehensive plans of care. While designed for graduate students, this activity was adapted for undergraduate and clinical practice application. Critical thinking and collaboration activities such as Mystery in the Crib are versatile and can be utilized by other specialties, various disease processes, and by all levels of learners.

Thermoneutral Environment for Neonates: Back to the Basics.

Thermoregulation is an essential component to the stability and long-term outcomes of newborns and critically-ill neonates. A thermoneutral environment (TNE) is an environment in which a neonate maintains a normal body temperature while minimizing energy expenditure and oxygen consumption. Neonates who experience thermal stability within a TNE demonstrate enhanced growth, decreased respiratory support, decreased oxygen requirements, increased glucose stability, reduced mortality, and reduced morbidities associated with hyperthermia and hypothermia. Heat exchange occurs between the neonate and surrounding environment through four mechanisms: evaporation, conduction, convection, and radiation. By recognizing the methods by which heat is lost or gained, the neonatal provider can prevent adverse conditions related to abnormal thermal control and support a thermoneutral neonatal environment.

Improving Quality in Neonatal Care Through Competency-Based Simulation.

Approximately 440,000 patients die each year due to preventable errors. Although human error is inevitable, we can mitigate this risk by enhancing skills and clinical competencies by improving the quality of neonatal care through competency-based simulation. Clinical skills are learned activities necessary to function within an environment. Skills gained during pre-licensure nursing education, on-site clinical training, and experience as a clinical care provider, collectively demonstrate a clinician's overall competence to function within a clinical setting. Simulation is a method of supporting nurses to establish, maintain, and remediate competency-based skills for safe and effective healthcare. Evidence suggests that simulation improve clinical skills and maintain patient safety. With this knowledge, many professional organizations have adopted and set standards for the use of simulation, as an educational methodology, to improve clinician skills and competence providing only the highest quality care to neonates within the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Simulating Telehealth Experiences in the Neonatal Care Environment: Improving Access to Care.

Telehealth in the neonatal environment can improve remote medical care and access to specialized care and training eliminating barriers for effective health care delivery. Clinicians are utilizing telehealth in their practice to provide specialized care and training in areas that have little access. Educating health care clinicians on the basics of telehealth is an essential component of clinical training programs. Use of simulation-based telehealth experiences as part of that training can provide hands-on learning in a safe, realistic environment. Simulation can prepare health care teams in using telehealth technology in managing patient care, postdischarge care, and specialized care programs.

Simulation to Enhance Communication Skills in Neonatal Nursing Practice.

Effective communication is essential to the delivery of safe, quality health care. Handoff reporting, situational reporting, interprofessional collaboration, caregiver communication, and team huddles are forms of status reporting and communication common in a neonatal nursing practice. Adequate training for health care professionals on effective communication techniques is often lacking. Simulation provides a method to develop and refine necessary communication skills for neonatal health care professionals and affords the opportunity for the learner to immerse into realistic clinical scenarios. The purpose of this article is to review communication techniques in the neonatal setting and describe methods of utilizing simulation to enhance communication skills for neonatal nursing practice.

Promoting Sustainable Nursing Leadership: The Nightingale Legacy.

The year 2020 features the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth. Her legacy is often recalled as simply being "the lady with the lamp" who cared for sick and wounded British soldiers; however, her impact on the nursing profession includes serving as a role model for many leadership behaviors and strategies that have positively impacted the health of communities and populations around the world. Through her tireless endeavors, Nightingale exemplified many leadership roles, including advocate, change agent, interprofessional collaborator, and visionary. The development of effective skills in these leadership roles remains important for all levels of nursing leaders in today's health-care environment. This article showcases Nightingale's leadership in selected leadership roles, and demonstrates her continued impact on contemporary nurses.

Transition Home: Safe Plan of Care for Infants With a History of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Opioid use disorder is an ever-expanding health epidemic affecting populations across the lifespan. Infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) often require additional resources while inpatient and after discharge to support ongoing NAS symptoms and improve outcomes. The purpose of this article is to highlight the need for a "safe plan of care" for infants with a history of NAS and provide evidence-based recommendations for providers. REVIEW OF CURRENT PRACTICE: In response to the opioid crisis, legislative efforts were passed to enhance access to care and provide valuable resources for families and clinical providers. These efforts require the development of comprehensive plans of care that include assessment of the home environment along with specialized care and services. Despite active legislation, infants and families continue to lack adequate access to resources such as therapy, specialized nutritional support, developmental specialists, and financial support. EVIDENCE-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS: An effective safe plan of care ensures that infants with a history of NAS are discharged to caregivers who are prepared, devoted, and responsive to the infants' needs. These essential components include responsive caregiving, safe and secure environments, appropriate nutrition, and health-promoting behaviors. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: A review of current practice and evidence-based recommendations reveals essential components of a safe plan of care for infants with a history of NAS. By embracing the need for a comprehensive plan, providers can empathize with family needs and activate resources to promote healthy families and improve long-term outcomes of these infants.

Competency-based education in transitioning nurse practitioner students from education into practice.

Competency-based education (CBE) provides a framework for nursing programs including those educating nurse practitioners (NPs). The basic assumption of CBE is that the student will demonstrate acquisition of the identified essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes expected for the designated educational process before leaving the learning environment. The work done to date in developing competencies and progression indicators provides the critical basis to move toward a common language and clear expectations for the continuum of linear progression of proficiency. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are built on competencies and stated as measurable activities that providers can be expected to do, at varying levels of competence or trust or supervision, and allow the faculty member, preceptor, or supervisor to make decisions as to what teaching methods and level of supervision are needed. Numerous methods are used to measure competency in clinical skill knowledge, performance, and practice readiness including clinical preceptor feedback, objective structured clinical examination, and simulation, just to name a few. NP programs continue to struggle with the education practice gap between theory and the actual provision of care. The discussion about novel and reliable methods for measurement of competencies must address the strategic importance of a consensus about when, where, and how students can obtain the appropriate amount and type of experience and supervision required in the transition to independent practice. There is also a significant need for processes and standardized guidelines that can contribute to EPA development.