Developing effective public health nursing practice: The nurse educator's role

Abstract

With governmental and organisational drives to improve quality and outcomes, developing and assessing staff competence is essential. Current school nursing workforce complexities, including differing skills and qualifications and an increased use of non-nursing staff, pose challenges to the delivery of effective public health nursing interventions. Because the workforce operates predominantly unsupervised, mainly in the school setting, organisations may be unclear as to the quality of care being delivered. The nurse educator could play an important role in public health nursing by helping to remedy these issues. The nurse educator has an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning processes, including andragogy, learning styles and theories. Nurse educators can also act as leaders and change agents, and have the scope to work alongside staff in the clinical setting to develop, support and assess clinical practice using competency frameworks and creating a learning environment. Ultimately the use of nurse educators could help provider organisations remain the service of choice by offering quality public health-care in today's competitive landscape.