Preparing Newly Licensed Associate Degree Nurses to Work in Home Health Care

Abstract

This article describes an innovative learning program, designed for associate degree nurse (ADN) graduates, developed at the visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) to expand its hiring pool of potential applicants to home health care nursing positions. The program, "Transitions to Home Health Care," provides a strong emphasis on independent judgment, assessment skills, and collaboration with other professions and resources outside the home health care agency. In view of the expanding number of ADN graduates and the increasing competition for a limited number of new bachelor of science in nursing (BSN), VNSNY developed and is testing a model that combines a specially designed one-year didactic educational course and a clinical practice internship program to prepare new ADN graduates to work in the home health care field at a level more comparable to that of BSN graduates. To date, VNSNY has had preliminary success with this new approach.

Evaluating the Short- and Long-term Outcomes of a Post-BSN Residency Program

“…Newly emerging models for settings other than hospitals or for graduates of associate degree programs operate outside the AACN/UHC umbrella. 3,[5][6][7] Hospitals participating in the UHC/AACN consortium are required, among other things, to collect data from their NRs at specified intervals throughout the course of the 12-month program. 2 Four instruments are integral to the UHC/AACN database: the CaseyFink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey, 8 Gerber's Control Over Nursing Practice Scale, 9 the MuellerMcCloskey Satisfaction Scale, 10 and the Graduate Nurse Residency Program Evaluation.…”

Interdisciplinary Perceptions of the Social Work Role in Hospice: Building Upon the Classic Kulys and Davis Study

“…The National Hospice Social Work Survey documented similar results: 81% of the social workers held a MSW degree, while the majority of nurses held a bachelor's degree or less (Reese & Raymer, 2004). The shortage of bachelor's prepared nurses in this country makes it an ever more common necessity to hire nurses with associate degrees and therefore development of training in the skills they lack is essential (Chaya et al, 2008). Further research is needed to explore whether hospice staff members possess the training and skills required to fulfill the social work functions in the areas in which social work intervention is absent.…”

Evolving Nurses into Home Health Care Practice

“…The role of a nurse in a HHC center is to provide one-onone care and teaching, and to exhibit strong assessment skills (Hartung, 2005). Also, nurses need to exercise independent judgment and control over working conditions and to practice primary case management and problem-solving skills that enable them to achieve positive outcomes with very complex, acutely ill patients (Chaya et al, 2008). Home health nurses must be self-reliant and exercise independent judgment, because they make decisions about a client's plan of care without the benefit of other nurses or physicians being present during a home visit.…”