Understand how to protect your license and livelihood as nursing faces more and more challenges. Understand licensing rules and regulations, how to effectively chart in EMR in order to protect yourself, and what is meant by competency in practice.
Competency: defined as the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. The question is how do you prove this?
Hospitals and other facilities have you do this by completing an orientation and then annual competency, but if asked by the board, how will you prove your individual competency, because, lets face it, if it comes down to a law suit where you and hospital are involved, you will need to defend your practice. How will you do this? Here are just a few suggestions:
-keep a record of your shifts and your primary duties during that shift, this will allow you to estimate how many times you (for example) start an IV, access a port, or insert a speculum
-keep tract of your continuing education and organizations you belong to which enhance your knowledge and practice. Often times belonging to a nursing certification organization is a way to demonstrate you maintain your knowledge in a certain area. If you read an article, and there is a CEU exam attached to it, spend the $$ for the CEU.
-If you perform a task in your practice that is not typically recognized by your BoN, how can you prove you are trained and competent. For example, if you are asked to perform a infiltration and irrigation (not something you are trained on in nursing school, but may be trained by an employer) you need to keep your own record of who trained you, who observed that you were competent and signed you off, and approximately how many I&I's you do maintaining your competence. Just because you were signed off once, doesn't mean you are forever competent. Do you attend annual trainings in which your knowledge is updated and your practice observed?
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