My passion for the medical field lead me to my career path to become a nurse. While initially unable to decide whether I wanted to become a nurse or a doctor, when I observed how much doctors depend on the observations and assessments of nurses it was clear that nursing would allow me to play an important role in the medical field. Additionally, I came to believe that nursing was a better fit for my desire to spend time getting to know the patients well enough to provide addition help for their problems based on each one’s individual needs. Coming from a family filled with educators and nurses I saw how much a nurse could contribute not just to patient care but patient and staff education, advocacy, and patient safety.
My path to where I am currently in terms of my career path indicates my strengths and weaknesses that have helped and sometimes hindered my progress. In terms of personal and professional accountability I believe my strong commitment to helping patients within and outside of strict medical functions is one of my strengths though could also possibly serve as a weakness. Life stressors outside of the medical realm can influence a patient’s ability to get better and put them at risk for further medical problems (Esterhuizen, 2006). I therefore spend a lot of time assessing and listening to patients’ difficulties in order to better know what resources might be appropriate to help them and what consultation might be made in a certain area. However, at the same time this approach can be excessively time consuming and add extra tasks to my work load such that I work longer than my shift or feel overwhelmed at times. So in terms of personal accountability, while I have a very strong sense of accountability to focusing on the complete patient picture to enhance their physical outcomes, this can also be a drain on me reflecting a weakness in personal accountability.
Career planning is another area I believe I have strengths and weaknesses in. I have been a nurse since the age of 20 and in that time I have worked in several different roles. I thrive in a high pace environment and so was drawn to ER medicine. After this, I decided to follow another interest of mine and transferred to an open heart surgery team. While I enjoy direct practice a great deal, I also am passionate about informational technology as it impact health care and so about eight years ago I used my IT skills to become an Epic Training Manager in IT and now travel as a consultant training health organizations in implementing Epic software which connects patients with all of their healthcare professionals, medical facilities and their records. While I think my multiple interests enables me to gain training in a number of different areas making me better able to advocate for and make skillful decisions based on several areas and disciplines it also means that I move to different areas to fulfill my passions taking my experience with me. This weakness might be seen as not being as responsible as I should be. For example, maybe it is more responsible to remain in one area and build skills so that area is able to benefit the most from my training instead of starting in a new areas causing the unit I am leaving to need to hire and train someone new.
My use of reflective practice has helped me in my leadership capacity. Using reflection on action I have been able to look back at events and my own behaviors and been able to see where I need to alter them to become better at my job and a more effective leader and advocate. . A weakness I have in this area is my tendency to fail to recognize the positive things I do such that sometimes reflection has a negative effect on my mood. I am improving at using reflection in action however, this is harder since it necessitates reflecting on ongoing behaviors. Often I fail to engage in this as I forget about it when I am in the middle of a work situation. I am better at it when I am not engaged in regular activities but instead am clearly in a learning situation but it is still hard to master being in the moment and observing from outside like a fly on the wall. As far as critical reflection goes, while I work on this I struggle with it. Since it refers to trying to discover my assumptions about myself, others, and my workplace as they are automatic long held assumptions it is difficult to figure them out as well as how they affect my behavior and approach to learning (Bulman, & Schutz, 2013).
In my current role as Training Manager in Information Technology I am able to advocate for change in the workplace to better serve patients in two ways. First, I am able to help with best practices and documentation tools to provide clinical staff with the ability to provide better patient care and meet or exceed standards for quality and review. As part of HIPAA regulations health care facilities need to prove they are following current Meaningful Use requirements. Online medical records and patient portals are a large part of this as well as demonstrating how they are benefitting the patient. I help staff at different facilities learn how to use our software specifically to improve patient-provider relationships, increase patient compliance and increase patient satisfaction. Second, I help train other nurse consultants to function in a similar capacity. Education focuses on increasing patient engagement among other areas such that although we are working in an IT capacity, the well -being of the patient is always at the forefront of their minds. In general, I use my leadership skills to motivate and support those in healthcare facilities who are responsible for meeting Meaningful Use criteria. This is important since most of them have had negative experiences with IT software created for patient privacy and security issues. I strive to help health care professionals view the Meaningful Use requirement as a way of changing how patient’s access, and use medical information, view their health records, and interact with the personal care team improving their overall quality of life, instead of just an onerous task necessary to prevent being fined.
While adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has increased significantly in the past several years, 25 percent of U.S. hospitals have still not implemented an EHR. This percentage includes an over-representation of small and rural hospitals (Adler-Milstein, et al., 2015). One of my leadership goals is to create a team focused on meeting with nurses and nurse managers at small and rural hospitals to educate and train them for using EHR’s. The will then become the in house team that works with others with similar goals to stimulate enthusiasm for implementing an EHR in that facility. To reach this goal, I plan to take extra classes on HIPAA and the use of EHR’s during my Master’s program to increase my knowledge base and possibly serve to help me HIPAA Certification in the future. I also plan to seek out training opportunities related to consulting and helping clients set and meet important goals, communication skills and education to improve my ability to impart my message, and more specialized IT classes specific to health care functions, HIPAA and ways to use patient portals to improve quality of life.
- Adler-Milstein, J., DesRoches, C. M., Kralovec, P., Foster, G., Worzala, C., Charles, D., & Jha, A. K. (2015). Electronic Health Record Adoption In US Hospitals: Progress Continues, But Challenges Persist. Health Affairs, 10-1377.
- Esterhuizen, P. (2006). Is the professional code still the cornerstone of clinical nursing practice? Journal of advanced nursing, 53(1), 104-110.
- Bulman, C., & Schutz, S. (Eds.). (2013). Reflective practice in nursing. John Wiley & Sons.
