Curriculum Overview and Evaluation.

Curriculum Overview and Evaluation.

            The desire of every patient once discharged from the hospital setting is to fully recuperate and assimilate back into the typical day to day duties. The yearning often occurs in almost all situations whereby a good prognosis is expected. However, a good outcome is not usually the situation replicated once the patient is discharged as some clients exacerbate once discharged from the hospital setting due to various factors. Chi et al. (2018) outline that 21% of patients admitted to the hospital setting often experience re-hospitalization due to a lack of continuity of care in the home setting. This predicament formed the initiative to formulate a curriculum to address follow up care, which forms the basis of this study paper.

Curriculum description

Follow up care program is a nurses’ only educational curriculum offered by valley health systems that train nurses on following up patients after discharge from medical or surgical wards. The program is being provided over six months and includes a four-month online virtual training session with four courses offered. The four courses, namely primary health nursing, community health nursing, emergency health services, and dispatch health services run over four months in total. Each course requires the nurse to attend 2-hour daily virtual training five days a week. The program necessitates the nurses enrolling in the curriculum to perform learning-based tasks that evaluate the learner’s capability. Additionally, the two-month case study, which enables the nurse to have a feel of the practice, offers the much-needed experience.

Course name and overview of content

The follow-up care services curriculum relies upon four major courses: dispatch health services, emergency healthcare, community health services, and primary health care as outlined before. The courses are interdependent to ensure that the nurse undergoing the curriculum is adequately trained on the provision of follow up care services. In this context, however, dispatch health services, a significant course in the curriculum, is the central aspect of the curriculum. Dispatch health services as a course in the follow-up care curriculum involve synchronizing and extending medical care from the discharge facility to the home setting. The course trains nurses on various aspects including home assessment, contact linkage, working closely with the family unit as well as developing trust.

Course rationale

Dispatch health services aim to educate nurses on the formulation of effective therapeutic relationships, which is often the critical aspect. The course also targets to train nurses on formulating a home care plan for the patient to satisfy his or her needs. Additionally, the course focuses on the assessment of the home setting, which is a dependent factor. The development of therapeutic relationships is another component extensively catered for in the course. The curriculum in totality is dependent on this course due to a myriad of reasons. Feo et al. (2017) outline that the nursing scope borrows heavily from the science field, eluding the aspects of therapeutic relationships.

Description of Intended Learners

            Nurses provide essential care to patients and combine pharmacological, medical, and supportive interventions to guarantee faster healing. All these efforts are necessary because nurses spend more time in the bedside area and attest that therapeutic interventions alone cannot heal patients. Therefore, as intended learners in this curriculum, nurses provide holistic care to the patients and be part of the support framework of the patient. Nurses in the context of this curriculum will be taught on the dynamics of the provision of follow up in patients discharged from their respective work stations. The curriculum will enable the nursing workforce to understand the dynamics involved in delivering these essential services to clients.

The Rationale of the Program

            Cohen et al. (2018) posit that follow up care in patients with chronic and acute conditions alike reduces the risk of readmission into the hospital setting. The nursing oriented program will train nurses on the provision of follow up care to patients discharged from hospitals due to medical and surgical conditions. The program seeks to inform nurses on the techniques and methodology of carrying out follow up care for patients in a bid to prevent re-hospitalization. The program will reduce the chances of readmission in discharged patients due to focused nursing care during the period of home recovery. Therefore in my view, this program is essential in ensuring that continuity of care occurs, which is beneficial to clients.

The Mission Statement of the Program

            Follow up care provided by valley health systems purposes to ensure the continuity of attention from the hospital setting to the home setting enabling the patient to heal completely. The mission statement of this program resonates with this initiative as it purposes to “provide exemplary knowledge for the provision of auxiliary health services.” Follow up care nursing program, a six-month professional training for qualified nurses, is tasked to provide online virtual training for four months and a two-month supervisor-centered case study. Over the four months, the nurses undergo a rigorous 2-hour daily virtual program with simple tasks for five days in a week.

After the completion of the four months, the learner initiates a case study that includes following up a discharged patient from the respective work station until full recovery. The two-month program necessitates that the follow-up period for the case study should not be limited to four weeks. Over the four months, nurses undertake the following courses: the follow-up care program, primary health nursing, emergency health services, community health nursing, and dispatch health services. The four specific courses offered by valley health systems run for four weeks each through the online virtual program.

Embedded Professional Standards, Guidelines, and Competencies in the Program

The program targets nurses currently providing services in the hospital setting, making it imperative to apply professional ethics and standards. Medical ethics, including human autonomy, justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, should use in the provision of services in follow up care (Dunn & Hope, 2018). These standards, in addition to community health principles, were included in the curriculum development of the program. Follow up care program by valley health systems is regulated by the New Jersey state board of nursing with standardization derived from code of ethics stipulated by the American nurses association. The program in totality upholds all the nursing standards specified by the nursing ethics and principles.

Student Learning Outcomes

            The nursing curriculum is robust and often requires dedication from the prospective nurse to transform into a novice professional. In this context, the practicing nurse providing follow up care will undergo the program and undertake competency evaluation every year. At the end of the program, the nurse should be able to display an understanding of the methodologies of providing primary health nursing, dispatch health services, community health nursing, and emergency health services. Therefore after the completion of this six-month program, the nurse should display efficiency in the provision of follow up care while taking into consideration the four essential branches of nursing embedded in the course.

Collaboration and curriculum design.

            The course is a relatively new concept and targets nurses who are already in practice, which requires various institutions. First and foremost, the American Nurses Association’s collaboration would be imperative to engrain it into the core of nursing. Through the invitation of the association representatives to analyze the curriculum, feedback will be utilized to make a necessary adjustment so that the curriculum can be widely accepted among the nurses. Health service providers will be another entity that would need collaboration through discussion on the technicalities regarding the cost and duration of the curriculum. This aspect would be critical to the course’s implementation as the health service providers offer the incentives for training and allow their staff to undergo the course. The curriculum is based on an outcome-based design that focuses on achieving the intended goals and objectives. The design majors basically on whether the learner has achieved or is in a position of achieving the curriculum’s goals and aims.

Organizational design and theoretical framework

Follow up purposes to reduce readmission rates following discharge from medical or surgical ward settings. The program in totality offers continuity of care to the patient, thus avoiding mismanagement during home recovery. The program’s primary aim denotes that the client should recover from the condition entirely, allowing assimilation into a healthy life. Therefore in my view, this curriculum is majorly outcome-based in that it purposes to train nurses to develop better outcomes in patients. The result based design, in essence, ensures that the learner can achieve the objectives included in the program. Moreover, nurses in this program face the need to surpass threshold scores of tasks accorded to them in the online program as well as the standards of nursing ethics and practice.

The follow-up care program subscribes to nursing ethics, principles, and standards that are contextualized into the program. The framework in question informs the nursing concepts necessitating the need to describe the structure as nursing based. In the program, the major components include person, environment, health, and nursing. The framework denotes that the person is specifically the patient discharged from the medical or surgical ward setting. The atmosphere, on the other hand, includes the home setting where the program bases its practice.  The recovery period informs the health concept of the program, while the follow-up care initiative informs the nursing concept. All these concepts of the framework work interchangeably to ensure that the nurse is informed of the methodology of carrying out follow up care.

History of organizing curriculum design and theoretical framework.

Outcome-based curriculum is often centered on goals and objectives. Following the success of the pilot programs, the Washington accord was created in the year 1989 that accepted engineering degrees to be obtained using OBE methods (Chen, Zhao, & Wang, 2016). This design was first adopted in Australia and South Africa through OBE policies in the early 1990s. The outcome-based curriculum was then taken in the year 1994, which has metamorphosed over the years. In other regions in the world, the design is still practiced all around the universities of Hong Kong, while Malaysia included it in all public schools.

The nursing conceptual framework’s history dated as back as the year 1980s, where the nursing curriculum faced extensive changes that define its place in society today. The conceptual framework in nursing came into contextualization in the early 1990s, with a focus majoring on practice knowledge as well as skills (Straughair, 2019). In the year 1998, ambulatory care adopted by the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN) created a task force that initiated the initial ambulatory care conceptual model. The task force identified the program’s significant concepts that included harmonization of nursing practice standards and ethics.

Major Concepts of the Organizing Design and Theoretical Framework.

The outcome-based curriculum design is dependent on four principles that include clarity of focus, which denotes that both the student and teacher should possess a strong sense of purpose in all initiatives performed (Tan, Chong, Subramaniam, & Wong, 2018).  Design down, deliver up is another principle that denotes that the educators should initiate the designs of the curriculum with the outcomes working backward. Additionally, high expectations are another concept utilized that conforms to the idea that all students can learn well, although not in the same way. Expanded opportunities are another concept that denotes that learning can occur different

ly.

The nursing conceptual framework depends on three main process components that include inquiry, caring, and practice. Inquiry involves the art of seeking development and application of knowledge. The method extensively denotes the contribution of research and education in nursing. Caring, on the other hand, involves expression of empathy towards the patient in addition to the practice of nursing care. Nursing practice is another component that includes the inclusion of evidence-based nursing towards the delivery of nursing care.

Demonstration of the organizing design and theoretical framework in the curriculum.

The outcome approach is dependent on the goals and objectives of the curriculum, which is demarcated in the curriculum through the formulation of tasks that the learner is supposed to achieve. Moreover, the curriculum exhibits high expectations through a case study that enables each nurse to practice uniquely. Besides, the curriculum aligns itself with the nursing conceptual framework through the inclusion of nursing standards practices and ethical standards.

Inclusion of Technology

Technology will form the basis for the transfer of knowledge in that it will be utilized to provide virtual classes to the nurses. Virtual classes will be beneficial to the nurses taking into consideration the prevailing professional work engagements. Moreover, proceeding evaluations will be carried out in a virtual platform except for certification. In this way, technology will be fully incorporated into the curriculum. In this way, the program will meet the needs of the nurses who in most times, have more working hours that inhibit movement to attend physical classrooms.

Kadivar et al. (2016) posit that virtual classes in nursing reduce the hassle experienced by practicing providers in the effort to receive an education. In this context, the formative evaluation will also be carried out from an online perspective, making it even easier for the nurses. Additionally, in my view, the formulation of this program will enable nurses to achieve adequate care in that the therapeutic relationship ends with the complete rehabilitation of the patient.

Consideration of internal and external factors

            Internal factors that influence the curriculum should be considered by analyzing the impact on the curriculum’s implementation. For instance, curriculum committees will impact the curriculum design as they tend to align the curriculum towards the overall nursing sphere, which may affect the originality. Additionally, organizational processes affect the curriculum’s design through the inclusion of the organizational aims and objectives that are in line with the curriculum, leaving out the wayward ones. Internal review bodies are often tasked with curriculum evaluation, which at times, change as the perspective of the curriculum. On the other hand, the external factor provides a significant impact on the curriculum design by affecting the suitability of the plan.

For instance, funding for the curriculum is dependent on staffing companies, which may decline long and expensive curriculums, altering the curriculum’s design. Stakeholders such as nursing associations and employers significantly impact the design through alteration of the aims to align with their views on the nursing profession. Consequently, team collaboration would be imperative to ensure a harmonized curriculum design that suits the nursing profession in the provision of follow up care.

Curriculum evaluation

Evaluation of the follow-up care curriculum is imperative to assess its suitability to achieve the intended objectives of ensuring continuity of care in the home setting. Flood & Commendador (2016) outlines that the nursing curriculum is dynamic and tends to align with the ever-changing medical fraternity demands. In the excerpt, the authors describe that curriculum evaluation is essential if the institution yearns to churn out novice nurses capable of tackling the challenges of the present world. Apart from summative assessment, ongoing assessment of the curriculum is critical.

Formative curriculum evaluation

The aspect of ongoing curriculum assessment is considered essential because the nursing scope is dynamic; consequently, the content should be reviewed to ensure that it is in line with the changes. Moreover, evaluation should occur formatively because it determines whether the curriculum’s value is suitable for the nurses it is being used on. The assessment furthermore outlines whether the methods of instruction employed resonate with the aims and objectives outlined. Additionally, it is also a determinant of whether the content is the best that could be selected as well as if the materials used for instruction are the best given the aims and objectives.

Criteria for curriculum evaluation

In curriculum evaluation, whether the objectives are addressed is the primary criterion for assessing the curriculum. Therefore in these criteria, the goals and aims of the curriculum are aligned in regard to the student outcomes. The curriculum is considered to have achieved its primary goals if the results resonate with the set aims or objectives. The second criteria for curriculum evaluation are often whether the subject content is being outlined in the set sequence. For instance, in the follow-up care curriculum, the case study proceeds with online theory training. To evaluate the curriculum, the curriculum review committee will determine whether the content delivery sequence matches the preset guidelines.

Following the committee’s assessment, the review shall also determine the involvement of students in the instructional experiences, which may be seminars, class meetings, and the overall lesson experience. In these criteria, the review committee engages the students in analyzing whether they are involved in the lesson experience holistically. The last criteria in the curriculum evaluation consist of analyzing the behavior elicited by the students regarding the lesson experience in general. These four criteria are imperative during curriculum evaluation to determine whether the curriculum meets the aims and objectives that were stipulated initially.

Pilot testing in curriculum evaluation

            For every curriculum review committee to succeed in identifying the negative aspects of the curriculum, piloting is imperative in the process of approving a curriculum. Therefore to realize this fete, the committee will settle on a group of six nurses stationed in valley hospitals to undertake the program, although in sponsored terms. In the process of the program undertaking, the committee will review the curriculum’s ability to meet aims and objectives of the course. Through this initiative, deficiencies of the program will be identified, and a framework is formulated to tackle them.

Curriculum evaluation occurs in two forms, namely short term and long term, with the short term including instances where testing of the curriculum occurs during the teaching process. Short term evaluation includes reviewing student summaries, midterm course evaluations, and student reflection papers. On the other hand, long-term evaluations include aspects such as curriculum review and decade outputs that occur over a long period. Majorly these two forms of assessment are essential as they ensure adaptability and quality of student experiences.

Application of nursing concepts, theories, and best practices

            Curriculum evaluation, especially in the nursing field, is reliant on the professional guidelines and practices encoded in the scope of practice. The development of the curriculum relies heavily on the nursing school of thought. The individual tasked with the synchronization must derive their aims, objectives, mission, and vision from a nursing theory. The foundation on which the curriculum relies will enable faster progression into sophistication than in instances where this aspect is ignored. Moreover, the inclusion of relevant professional bodies such as the American nursing association will foster the inculcation of best practices in the curriculum.

Accreditation body for selected curriculum.

            A follow-up care curriculum is designed to provide staff nurses knowledge to ensure continuity of care in the home setting. Following this demarcation, the curriculum stands as a hospital staff development program that caters for already qualified nurses. Consequently, the healthcare facilities accreditation program (HFAP) will suffice as the best accreditation program as it provides for curriculums tailored for hospital staff. Through this avenue, the curriculum will get the necessary green light needed to roll it out for a vast number of nurses.

Following notice of survey by the accreditation institution, a review is scheduled within 90 days after which the program and a survey created. The survey is done, and a deficiency report availed to the institution, which requires a plan of correction to be forwarded to the accreditation institution within ten days. The criteria is specific, and accreditation is accorded to the institution once approval of the plan of correction occurs. The accreditation decision lies squarely in 3 choices, namely certification, revocation of certification, and denial of accreditation.

References

Chi, G., Yee, M. K., Amin, A. N., Goldhaber, S. Z., Hernandez, A. F., Hull, R. D., … & Gibson,  C. M. (2018). Extended-duration betrixaban reduces the risk of re-hospitalization associated       with venous thromboembolism among acutely ill hospitalized medical patients: findings from the APEX trial (acute medically ill venous thromboembolism prevention with        extended duration betrixaban trial). Circulation, 137(1), 91-94.

Cohen, M. E., Jaffe, A., Strauch, C. B., Lewis, S. K., Lebwohl, B., & Green, P. H. (2018). Determinants of follow-up care for patients with celiac disease. Journal of clinical gastroenterology, 52(9), 784-788. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCG.0000000000000851

Cox, A. M. (2020). Nurse or Psychotherapist? Using Nursing Skills in Therapeutic Relationships  and Psychotherapies. In Nursing Skills for Children and Young People’s Mental Health            (pp. 139-154). Springer, Cham. Dunn, M., & Hope, T. (2018). Medical ethics: a concise introduction. Oxford University Press.

Dunn, M., & Hope, T. (2018). Medical ethics: a concise introduction. Oxford University Press.

Feo, R., Rasmussen, P., Wiechula, R., Conroy, T., & Kitson, A. (2017). Developing effective       and caring nurse-patient relationships. Nursing Standard (2014+), 31(28), 54.

Flood, J. L., & Commendador, K. A. (2016). Undergraduate nursing students and cross-cultural  care: A program evaluation. Nurse education today, 36, 190-194.

Kadivar, M., Seyedfatemi, N., Zolfaghari, M., Mehran, A., & Hossinzade, Z. (2016). The impact of virtual-based education on nurses’ self-efficacy in level II neonatal care. نشریه پرستاری و مراقبت های ویژه, 9(4), 0-0.‎ Retrieved from http://jccnursing.com/article-1 355-en.html

Straughair, C. (2019). Reflections on developing a conceptual framework to support a       constructivist grounded theory study on compassion in nursing. Nurse researcher, 27(1),  22-26.

Tan, K., Chong, M. C., Subramaniam, P., & Wong, L. P. (2018). The effectiveness of outcome     based education on the competencies of nursing students: A systematic review. Nurse     education today, 64, 180-189.

Appendix

Dispatch health services course outline

Course duration-4 weeks                                                        Instructor: