By: American Nurses Credentialing Center – Accreditation Jennifer Graebe MSN, RN, NEA-BC Director, Nursing Continuing Professional Development & Joint Accreditation Program

There has always been a need for just-in-time education in health care, but the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to re-think the way we approach professional development.

Being short on time does not mean you must compromise quality. Instead, nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners need to think about how to re-energize and re-engage learners to close these new gaps, while embracing the adaptability of quality standards and criteria. Sometimes the need for education is so acute that there isn’t time to go through your standard planning processes. The key to managing this is through adaptable, flexible processes with an evidence-based framework. The ANCC Nursing Continuing Professional Development (NCPD) Accreditation program provides this flexible framework to assist you in ensuring quality, even in the most high-demand, high-stress learning environments and conditions.

NPD practitioners and nurse planners are facing added challenges with the need to rapidly onboard new nurses, nurses returning from retirement, and nurses who may have been re-deployed to new practice settings. Now more than ever, NPD practitioners and nurse planners are utilizing creativity, ingenuity, and collaboration to achieve great results in real time.

How can NPD practitioners and nurse planners juggle these ever-changing demands and still meet the needs of their learners?

Consider these tips:

• Know Your Resources. NPD practitioners and nurse planners are the experts at orientation, re-deployment, and ensuring quality and integrity in education. Reach out to them for guidance in real-time activity planning.
• Stay Engaged. Environmental scanning and needs assessments can be done anytime, anywhere. Always be evaluating the needs of your learners! Through meaningful conversation, engagement, and observation, discover what your learners’ needs truly are, rather than make assumptions. Meet your learners where they are to provide NCPD in a way that is meaningful to them.
• Work Together. We have all heard the phrase “it takes a village.” Utilize your interprofessional colleagues, such as those interested in teaching or naturally gifted preceptors. No one can take on all these tasks alone. But together, quality NCPD can be delivered where it’s needed, when it’s needed.

ANCC NCPD Accreditation considers these factors when it comes to activity planning and organizational processes. The criteria are designed to be fluid and adaptable, much like the education process itself. For more information about how ANCC NCPD Accreditation can provide a roadmap for your real-time education needs, download a free copy of the official manual and get started on your journey here.

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Categories: Leadership / Management, Team Development

Tags: Credentialing / Accreditation Programs