Medication competence requirements of a graduating registered nurse : towards national consensus
Sulosaari, Virpi; Erkko, Päivi; Walta, Leena (2010)
Turun ammattikorkeakoulu
2010
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-216-132-1
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-216-132-1
Tiivistelmä
Nurses play a key role in the safe and efficient medication care of patients. Therefore, nurses are expected to possess good medication skills, knowledge and decision-making competence when implementing assignments within medication care. The implementation of medication care is one of the most important and high-risk assignments of a registered nurse.
The core competence of medication care has to be acquired during the basic nursing education, because a nurse is expected to be competent to implement safe and appropriate medication care immediately after graduation. The demands on the nurses’ medication competence increase continually as new, more efficient, and in terms of implementation, more demanding medicines are developed, and more severely ill patients and patients with multiple diagnoses can be treated with medication. The task of the universities of applied sciences in Finland is to enable and ensure nurses’ adequate medication competence in an increasingly demanding working environment in social and healthcare services.
In 2005, Turku University of Applied Sciences began to develop a medication passport to support and ensure nurse students’ medication competence. While developing the passport, it became clear that there was a need for a national medication passport that would indicate a student’s medication competence. To take up this challenge, it was necessary to first describe the nurses’ skills and competence criteria extensively. The results are reported in this publication.
The core competence of medication care has to be acquired during the basic nursing education, because a nurse is expected to be competent to implement safe and appropriate medication care immediately after graduation. The demands on the nurses’ medication competence increase continually as new, more efficient, and in terms of implementation, more demanding medicines are developed, and more severely ill patients and patients with multiple diagnoses can be treated with medication. The task of the universities of applied sciences in Finland is to enable and ensure nurses’ adequate medication competence in an increasingly demanding working environment in social and healthcare services.
In 2005, Turku University of Applied Sciences began to develop a medication passport to support and ensure nurse students’ medication competence. While developing the passport, it became clear that there was a need for a national medication passport that would indicate a student’s medication competence. To take up this challenge, it was necessary to first describe the nurses’ skills and competence criteria extensively. The results are reported in this publication.