NRS-440VN: The Role of Continuing Education in Nursing Practice

This presentation addresses the question of whether continuing nursing education should be mandatory for all nurses, arguing in favor of it due to the rapidly evolving healthcare environment. It highlights the benefits of continuous learning for maintaining skills, promoting patient safety, and professional development. The presentation explores the impact of continuing education on competency, knowledge, attitudes, and its relationship to professional certification, ANA Scope and Standards of Practice, and the ANA Code of Ethics. While acknowledging the challenges of time, cost, and balancing education with work, the presentation emphasizes the importance of meeting ANA standards and improving health outcomes through continuous learning and ethical practice. It concludes by reinforcing the necessity of continuing education for nurses to remain competent, ethical, and effective in their practice.

Continuing Nursing
Education
Gurwinder Kaur
Lajuanna Barnett
Christa Robideau
Grand Canyon University
NRS-440VN

'Should continuing nursing education
be mandatory for all nurses?’
Response:
 Yes, continuing nursing education should be made mandatory for
all nurse because it provides nurse the opportunity to regularly
update their skills and become confident in handling complex
case in care. As the health care environment is becoming
complex and challenging, having updates skills and nursing
education is vital for professional development. This can provide
nurse with the opportunity to use promote patient safety and
utilize the knowledge for the well-being of patient. Pool et al.
(2015) argues that continuous learning is important to remain
informed and maintain one’s value on the job market.

Impact on Competency
PROS
Continuing Nursing Education

Impact on Competency
CONS
Continuing Nursing Education

Impact on Knowledge and Attitudes

Impact on Knowledge and Attitudes

Relationship to Professional Certification
Pros:
 Continuing education supports nurse to meet the requirements for
renewing professional certification or for license renewal
 It enriches their professional practice portfolio
 It validates nurse’s competency to patients and families
 It increases the possibility of increased pay for nurses (Hagler, 2018).

Relationship to Professional Certification
Cons:
 Extra time and cost is required to continue nursing
education
 It requires nurse to take additional time out to
engage in continuing education apart from daily
practice
 Challenge of nursing shift hours being parallel to the
educational classes
 Struggle in conducting needs assessment
(Eslamian, Moeini & Soleimani, 2015)

Code of Ethics [cont]

Relationship to ANA
Scope and Standards of Practice
Pros:
 Helps nurses to meet ANA standard of meeting knowledge and
continuing education requirements in practice.
 Allows nurse to practice to the full extent
 Supports nurse in the enactment of knowledge across the
profession
 Allows nurse to improve health outcomes in specific care
context
 Develops skills and competencies and promotes positive
practice environment (ANA, 2015).

Relationship to ANA
Scope and Standards of Practice Contd…
Cons:
 In an attempt to meet the ANA standards, nurse
faced challenge in translation of knowledge
 Nurse face issues in applying theory to practice
 Increases the likelihood of fatigue for nurse due
to the need to balance continuing education with
daily shift (ANA, 2015).

Relationship to ANA Code of Ethics