We hear a lot about the "nurse of the future" changing roles as the picture of healthcare changes. We are also hearing about more multipurpose cross-trained staff evaluating and assessing by means of remote monitoring (including pattern recognition), RN navigators, interprofessional collaboration, social nonmedical assessments, hospital care provided at home, virtual care (telephonic and video visits), taking care to the patient, and increased use of technology. What do these changes mean for Nursing Professional Development (NPD) practitioners of the future? NPD practitioners need to be out in front learning new skills and processes. Are we ready for change? I wish I had a crystal ball to predict what our nursing specialty will look like in the future, but I don't. All I can do is read, listen, investigate, and be open to what I see and hear. With that in mind, here are some of my thoughts on the future of NPD practitioners.
PREDICTIONS
The first, most obvious prediction is that we will continue to use more and more technology in developing our staff. This will include using the smartphone, texting, and clicking on Quick Response (QR) codes of products for just in time learning regarding product procedures, Apps, Podcasts, Vimeo, YouTube, and others yet to be developed. We hear comments like "I don't want to read, can't you just do a video?" Some staff members want sound bites, and I have to say that they can work. The flipped classroom fits nicely with the increased use of technology where the learner can use technology to gather knowledge and then come to a discussion in the classroom to learn analysis, synthesis, and application skills. Other technological methods will include game-based learning, crowdsourcing, blending the digital and physical worlds, social media, and visual learning. There will be Web-based virtual neighborhoods or communities of families (with unfolding stories) cared for by a variety of healthcare providers that will be used for developing staff.
Millennials, now in the workforce, generally prefer interactive, technology-based learning. But we still have four generations in the workforce so we need work to create workplace learning options. Another prediction is that we will need to provide more choices for people based on how they learn best: menu options. Good teaching practices are good teaching practices no matter what age group serves as the focus, but there are some techniques that work better than others for learners of certain ages.
Another prediction is that we will need to move to a more learner-centric style of instruction rather than the more traditional instructor-centered model. That means that we will be shifting to more active, collaborative, learner-directed, and experience-based forms of teaching and learning. There will be more clinical-based learning than classroom-based learning, and this will include interprofessional clinical learning. Because medical knowledge doubles every 5-8 years, staff will need to learn to monitor, synthesize, manage, and apply new information based on what each learner specifically needs to know in order to practice their specialty. NPD practitioners will need to use data to determine the learning needs of individual staff both for orientation and ongoing proficiency. For example, there will be newly hired nurses who need information on a variety of subjects, and there will be newly hired nurses who only need to be oriented to the facility and/or the unit. How will you know which if you don't have the data? We will also see more use of online staff assessment which will provide instant feedback.
I believe that another focus will be on a variety of partnerships. This may include teaching teams, interprofessional education, and closer academic service partnerships. In some of our facilities, we see combined professional development and informatics departments as a partnership. We will need closer partnerships with administration and management, as we seek to develop our staff and ensure that they are providing the best possible care.
I also predict that there will be more project-based learning. Project-based learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by investigating and responding to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. It offers an alternative to teacher-led classrooms and involves learning by doing. Learners work together to solve real-world problems and learn a variety of skills in the process. Project-based learning is more easily employed in leadership development, which will continue to be a professional development focus in the future.
Communities of learning will be another future focus. A learning community is a group of people who share common learning goals and who meet to collaborate on classwork toward meeting those goals. This is another area where interprofessional education will be important. Learning communities are fairly common in colleges and universities and need to be brought to the workplace, especially as a strategy in the area of continuing education. It is a way to advance the knowledge and performance of the whole, while supporting the growth of the individual.
Many of these predictions may sound familiar, but they will need to be embedded in our everyday work to become practices of today. There are constantly new strategies on the horizon.
CURRENT AND FUTURE SKILLS NEEDED BY THE NPD PRACTITIONER
In order to meet the challenge of professional development in the future, NPD practitioners will need to hone their current skills and develop new skills and competencies. These include the following:
* Technical competence in professional development. Qualifications for an NPD practitioner of the future: master's degree in nursing, doctorate preferred, certification in NPD and lots of mentored practice in the field. I believe those should be current requirements, but I do not necessarily see them playing out in organizations.
* Research and evidence-based practice regarding NPD practices.
* Better understanding of how people learn garnered through reading and research.
* Reflective practice-what works well and what doesn't.
* Knowing how to use the current technology, which will change rapidly; keeping one step ahead of education technology developments; understanding new technologies and their implications.
* Experimentation with new research outcomes to constantly refine his/her approach.
* Creativity/play-being able to brainstorm and randomly explore in order to construct, create, and produce new education strategies.
* Using Web tools and social media to facilitate social and collaborative learning.
* Developing team-based learning and learning communities.
* Using different instructional strategies for different learning styles, offering choice.
* Incorporating learner's interaction with others in the learning process.
WHAT NPD PRACTITIONERS NEED TO DO TO MOVE INTO THE FUTURE
* Be ready for change. It has been said that change is hard, but not changing is fatal.
* Anticipate the future-look at your practice with fresh eyes.
* Be a lifelong learner willing to accept change and learn from your mistakes, from your colleagues, and your participants.
* View yourself as and be a learner. Don't view yourself as a source of knowledge but rather as an expert in learning, a guide and partner with the learner, knowing where to find the information and how to evaluate it.
* Stay responsive to changes so you can continue to be relevant. There is an endless demand for new forms of learning. Be a part of creating them.
* Foster peer relationships as technology can be isolating. Help the staff to learn from one another and work as a team.
* Develop the ability to assess all types of learners and then provide what they need in order to learn in the way they learn most effectively.
* Develop the ability to determine what technology will be effective and what technology will not be effective in assisting the learning process.
* Partner with academia-serve on advisory boards to know what's coming.
* Participate in the innovation efforts of your facility to keep ahead of the curve.
* Participate in national, regional, and local nursing associations.
* Read, conduct literature searches, and attend conferences and national conventions.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Many of these predictions focus on the use of new technologies in the learning process. Online learning is no longer just reading a module and answering questions. It can now be developed into follow-up discussions and learning exercises and is becoming a more useful tool to enhance traditional face-to-face education. There has been concern expressed that this technology will replace the need for educators, but I don't agree. Anyone can learn information from an online module, but a good teacher will need to be there to draw out that knowledge, help the learner develop skills, creative thinking, clinical reasoning, and the ability to think critically about what they have heard or read, and help them apply the new knowledge to patient care. Using technology is just one strategy that NPD practitioners can employ in helping learners enhance their knowledge and skills. The NPD practitioner, as always, needs to know the best strategies to use for maximum learning outcome and needs to adapt to using new methods as they are developed. This may mean that the NPD practitioner may need more specialized training in using these new methods, but that is as it has always been in our profession.