Relation of Competencies to Nursing Practice

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Relation of competencies to nursing practice:
According to Knebel and Greiner (2003), the core competencies required for a New
Vision for Health Professions Education includes providing patient-centered care, working in
interdisciplinary team, adapting evidence-based practice, applying quality improvement and
utilize informatics. These five competencies are important to meet the expectations of daily
practice in current setting and apply clinical reasoning and critical thinking to judge patients.
These competences related to my nursing practice area because in my profession, providing
patient centered care is important. Hence, as I need to provide care to elderly patients with
diverse culture and value, patient centered competencies related to respect, coordination and
shared decision making helps me to establish therapeutic relationship with patient. In addition, in
the geriatric care setting, we need to work with multiprofessional team where active
communication and collaboration is critical for patient safety. This is relevant to the second
competencies from the list. In addition, we work to integrate best research evidence, apply
innovative technology and informatics for health care delivery and continuously monitor
standards of safety for patient. This is relevant with the other three competencies listed in the
book.
Application of one of the competencies in workplace:
One of the examples that depicts application of one of the five competencies of applying
quality improvement will be discussed in this section. As we work in a geriatric care setting, we
pay special emphasis on fall prevention and preventing risk of injuries for elderly clients.
Prevention of fall in elderly is important because to promote functional independence and
improve quality of life of patients. Hip fracture is a common injury sustained by elderly patient

2NURSING
because of falling and the risk of falling in elderly is high because of age related causes such as
frailty, vision problem, medications, acute illness and poor balance (Jin, 2018). Hence, as we are
committed to the safety of our patient, we engage in fall risk assessment of each patient after
hospitalization. This involves conducting physical assessment of patient to identify any
conditions that lead to risk of falling. Based on such assessment, we apply special bands to
patients so that all involved medical teams are aware about the risk. Secondly, we also engage in
environment assessment of patient to ensure that bed railings, floors, pillows and washroom is
clean and free from any clutter that creates the risk of falling. Hence, this form of activities in my
nursing practice is relevant with the competencies such as identifying hazards in care. Fall
prevention intervention in our workplace helps to fulfill the competency of quality improvement
and evaluate quality of care in terms of organizational structure as well as patient needs.
Improving other competencies in workplace:
Apart from meeting quality improvement competencies, my workplace can emphasize on
meeting other competencies in the following ways:
1. To improve the competency related to patient-centered care skills, our workplace can
focus on establishing a process to maintain continuum of care and promote respect and
values of patient. Patient empowerment and patient education needs to be embraced so
that patients are engages and information sharing takes place across the continuum
(Fleming & Haney, 2013).
2. To promote effective interdisciplinary teamwork in the workplace, there is a need for
clinical leaders to take an active step in developing the vision of team work among all
team members and effectively implement tools such as SBAR and other tools to