"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."-Jimmy Dean
As I reflect over our last year, I cannot believe how our world has changed! In my Editorial in the January/February 2020 issue of the Journal for Nurses in Professional Development (JNPD; Burke, 2020), I stated that 2020 was going to be a "year for growth!" Well, because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 did turn out to be a year of rapid, unprecedented change and growth in every aspect of our lives. The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the most challenging healthcare learning environments that I have experienced in my 42 years as a nurse and educator. During this crisis, nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners needed to "adjust their sails" in order to keep moving forward against many challenges and obstacles. I witnessed NPD practitioners very quickly pivoting and creating innovative ways to deliver essential education to support the learning needs of nurses many of whom were working in new areas or caring for new COVID-19 patients. I have never been prouder to be an NPD practitioner!
I am also extremely proud of our JNPD board, who are working diligently during this crisis to maintain the quality of JNPD, working with authors, reviewing manuscripts, and participating in the JNPD board meetings while dealing with the COVID-19 crisis in their organizations. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, we established a call for brief papers addressing how NPD practitioners were responding to the impact of COVID-19 in their organizations. To date, we have received over 15 papers describing innovative programs responding to COVID-19. Be sure to read the "From the Frontlines to the Back Page" column as well as several feature articles on the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, this year, we wanted to keep moving forward in our goal to update JNPD by asking you, our readers, what you would like to see in JNPD. A reader's survey was collaboratively managed by Wolters Kluwer and the Association for Nursing Professional Development (ANPD). The survey was deployed by ANPD to randomly selected members of ANPD, and the data collection and analysis were managed by Wolters Kluwer. The survey was hosted on SurveyMonkey and fielded June 1 to June 26, 2020. We had a total of 619 responses. I would like to thank all the readers who took the time to respond to the survey, especially during this very challenging time. Below is a summary of some of the survey highlights.
* Three fourth of the respondents report they have been reading JNPD for less than 10 years. About 60% of the readers say they read about half or more of each journal issue.
* The majority read the Journal in electronic format, with a significant percentage also reporting reading in print. Sixty percent of the readers also report that they visit the journal website at least once a month. Frequency of reading the Journal has remained the same for the majority in the past year.
* Eighty percent gave JNPD a 5 or 4 rating on all the attributes, except on the usefulness of advertisements. The Journal's visual presentation could be improved as well. The Journal's unbiased content gets the highest rating.
* Readers rate JNPD to be highly valuable to them in their profession.
* All sections of JNPD were found useful by the majority of the readers, with Feature Articles/Original, Scope and Standards, Preceptorship, and Transition to Practice rated as the most useful ones.
* Full-text PDF downloads of articles and archive of back issues were rated as the most useful features of the website.
* A large majority of readers would like to keep all aspects of the Journal the same. However, a quarter of readers say they would like to see an increase in number of illustrations/photographs per issue.
The JNPD Board has heard your voices, and in collaboration with our publisher, we plan to make several improvements in JNPD. Look for exciting updates in 2022!
We have seen more rapid changes this year than we have seen in the last 20 years, and changes will continue. The way that we deliver health care is forever changed. We will need new tools and new frameworks to continue to adjust our sails to move forward. I just finished reading a book titled Leadership U: Accelerating Through the Crisis Curve by Gary Burnison (2020). In this book, Burnison describes six degrees of leadership that provide a framework for leadership during challenging times. According to Burnison, we must "ANTICIPATE-predicting what lies ahead, NAVIGATE-course correcting in real time, COMMUNICATE-continually, LISTEN-to what you do not want to hear, LEARN-fail fast, learn faster and LEAD-be all in, all the time" (p. xvii). I hope you find this framework helpful as you continue to adjust your sails and navigate this crisis. Although we do not know what the future holds and when this crisis will end, we do know that, as NPD practitioners, we will need to navigate this pandemic and its aftermath with innovation, leadership, and agility and continually adjust our sails to reach our destinations.
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