From the Past to the Future (ANSWERED)

QUESTION

Purpose:

The purpose of this discussion is for learners to analyze lessons from the past that apply to the future.

Course Outcomes:

This assignment enables the student to meet the following course outcome:

CO4: Analyze the impact of nursing history on professional nursing roles today and in the future. (PO7)

Due Date

During the assigned week (Sunday the start of the assigned week through Saturday the end of the assigned week):
- Posts in the discussion at least two times, and
- Posts in the discussion on two different days

Points Possible

50 points

Directions

Discussions are designed to promote dialogue between faculty and students, and students and their peers. In discussions students:
- Demonstrate understanding of concepts for the week
- Integrate outside scholarly sources when required
- Engage in meaningful dialogue with classmates and/or instructor
- Express opinions clearly and logically, in a professional manner
Use the rubric on this page as you compose your answers.
Best Practices include:
- Participation early in the week is encouraged to stimulate meaningful discussion among classmates and instructor.
- Enter the discussion often during the week to read and learn from posts.
- Select different classmates for your reply each week.

Discussion

What lessons from history have we learned as a profession that will take us into the next century? What can we do to help this happen? What should we avoid?

ANSWER

From the Past to the Future

Florence Nightingale advocated for health reforms and was also the founding pioneer of using statistics and data visualization in healthcare. During her practice, Nightingale discovered that unsanitary hospital conditions and lack of essential care and nutrition killed more soldiers than war injuries (Benton et al., 2019). She gathered data to mobilize resources and encourage stakeholders to address the precarious conditions. Her use of data to identify the root causes of problems is perhaps the most important gift Nightingale gave the nursing profession. She used the polar area diagram to visualize and communicate the root causes of deaths and the overwhelming cases of preventable harm. Given her success in reforming the health sector, we learn that the use of data in nursing practice cannot be underestimated. Like Nightingale, nurses can use data to reform the healthcare system innovatively.

Most of Nightingale’s work and data originated from her work during practice, i.e., her research was derived from her own nursing experiences. Nurses have the opportunity to model Nightingale’s behavior. Unfortunately, many nurses’ innovative work today goes unreported, undocumented, and unacknowledged today. For example, many healthcare delivery systems have undertaken site-specific quality improvement initiatives, yet their innovations are rarely reported in scientific literature. This un-documentation results in duplicative efforts and underutilization of nursing innovation, knowledge, and impact.

Nurses can prevent this by embracing the culture of sharing their evidence-based practice. Instead of letting their work lie in hospital settings, nurses must endeavor to document their accomplishments and practice observations in peer-reviewed journals. Nightingale would not have achieved what she did if she had not recorded and shared her data and observations with other stakeholders. Therefore, nurses must also endeavor to advance the profession by contributing to discovery. Publishing own work in peer-reviewed journals will ease discovery, ensure scientific rigor, and provide a mechanism through which nurses can contribute to meta-analyses and systematic reviews. When nurses systematically curate and publish evidence, their colleagues can leverage the existing work and help reframe policy.

References

Benton, D.C., Beasley, C.J., Ferguson, S.L., (2019). Nursing now! Learning from the past, positioning for the future. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 24(2), https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol24No02Man05