Standards of Practice

Purpose

The College is committed to the values of adaptability, caring, excellence, integrity, and service by creating an environment for students to learn, grow, and flourish through self assessment and application of theory and research to nursing practice. This type of environment enables the student to make the transition from learning to critically think to reflection service in provided.  This in turn provides opportunities to determine optimal care for clients, families, groups, communities, and society at large.

The graduate will be prepared at the baccalaureate level in nursing to function as a generalist who uses evidence based research in implementing the nursing process when caring for a diverse, multicultural society in a variety of healthcare settings. The major roles the graduate will be prepared to assume are direct provider, planner/coordinator, manager, and member of the nursing profession and interprofessional health care team.  The baccalaureate program is designed to prepare the graduate for professional nursing practice within the legal framework of the Illinois Nurse Practice Act or state of desired licensure practice. The graduate will be a contributor to the nursing profession through caring, learning, service, and research. The graduate professional nurse is one who has the leadership skills to can change the economic, environmental, social, and political future of a global society.

Philosophy

The faculty of Lakeview College of Nursing is committed to the following beliefs concerning people, groups, environment, health, nursing, nursing education, service learning, leadership, and caring.  As a discipline and a profession, nursing has a unique body of knowledge using various nursing theories and provides a vital service for individuals and their environment.  Nursing is accountable for nursing practice based on a Code of Ethics, Standards of Practice, and evidence based research.  The professional nurse provides healthcare based on the problem-solving methodology of the nursing process; assumes an active role for the improvement of healthcare; and facilitates individuals, families, groups, and communities to meet their healthcare needs throughout the lifespan. Nursing activities are relational and contextual and may be structured or unstructured. These activities require clinical judgment skills; diagnostic and monitoring skills; technological skills; and helping, coaching, teaching, counseling, and communication skills; and understanding of cultural diversity. Nursing is concerned with coordinating family, group, community, and professional resources to augment healthcare of the individual (AACN, 2008).

People refers to an individual (the individual is a client or patient with the terms being interchangeable), families, communities and populations interacting with environments across the lifespan.  Individuals possess worth and dignity and have unique capabilities for reasoning, adapting to change, and advancing through developmental stages in order to maximize their potential.   Each individual has a phenomenal field that has a unique frame of meaning developed through experiences, demographics, attitudes, and behaviors.  People have adaptive capabilities by which they attempt to manipulate the physical, biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual resources of their internal and external environment to promote well being. As open systems, individuals adapt and evolve in mutual interaction with other systems. Individuals relate within the context of self, family, group, community, and society. They are endowed with unique qualities and have a basic need for respect and recognition of personal worth. Individuals have the right to participate in decisions affecting their own wellness.

Groups consist of more than two persons that may or may not have formal relationships with each other.  Groups may experience limited knowledge and/or resources and consequent high relative risk for morbidity and premature mortality. Vulnerable populations are social groups whose demographic, geographic, or economic characteristics impede or prevent their access to health care services.  Families, communities and populations influence the health and health decisions of their members through social, moral, spiritual, and cultural values. 

Environment comprises internal and external contexts and processes that have an impact on people.   The individual's unique perceptions and response to this phenomenon distinguishes individuals from one another. Individuals interact with their environment in a dynamic process which requires adaptation. Interactions include regulating, promoting, modifying, maintaining, and monitoring the relationships between the individual and the environment. Environment includes physical, psychological, social, spiritual and cultural elements, as well as the conceptual space in which nursing is needed, implemented, and evaluated.   Environment also includes the historical, political, and economic conditions through which systems of care evolve.

Health is a broad and encompassing concept that takes into consideration the whole person and includes measures of life experiences, life satisfaction, and happiness. Health is a dynamic state of physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being, defined in accordance with cultural norms and goals that influence the relationships and interactions of the individual, family, and community.  Optimal health is the perceived balance of the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social aspects of the person.  Persons are influenced to engage in health-promoting behaviors when significant others provide assistance and support to enable the behavior.  The individual can overcome, accept and adapt, or succumb to illness. When an individual requires assistance to support, restore, or enhance personal capabilities for living or meeting life crises, there is a legitimate need for nursing intervention.

Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations (ANA, 2003).  Nursing is an evidence-based health care discipline with practitioners who promote optimal health across the life span. The baccalaureate nurse is prepared to practice in all health care settings - critical care, public health, primary care, and mental health. Nurses exercise clinical judgment to provide care effectively and efficiently. Nursing practice is interactive, tailored to the person and is caring, sensitive to diversity, mutually determined, and accountable to the profession and society.

Nursing is concerned with human experience, behavior, feelings, and the influence of social forces resulting from interaction with the internal and external environment. Nursing’s scope of practice encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the care of ill, disabled and dying people. Advocacy, promotion of a safe environment, research, participation in shaping health policy and in patient and health systems management, and education are also key nursing roles. The scope of practice is not limited to specific tasks, functions or responsibilities but includes direct care giving and evaluation of its impact, advocating for patients and for health, supervising and delegating to others, leading, managing, teaching, undertaking research and developing health policy for health care systems (International Council of Nursing http://www.icn.ch/abouticn.htm).

Liberal education is essential for the professional nurse to live a fulfilling life, act in public interest locally and globally, and contribute to the nursing profession throughout his or her career (AACN, 2008). Faculty respect and model the knowledge of a liberal education in classroom and clinical settings. The faculty believes in an atmosphere where self awareness, critical thinking, creativity, and leadership are paramount. Each student has the opportunity to develop a professional identity and commitment to continued personal and professional growth.

Nursing education has its roots in the humanities and sciences as well as in nursing knowledge and takes place in senior educational facilities. References to nursing theories and models enhance understanding of the phenomena of nursing, its nature and scope. Education is viewed as a lifelong experience and is the result of teaching and learning processes that occur in formal and informal settings. Career mobility maximizes the individual student's potential for personal and professional growth and is facilitated through an educational process that reflects flexible programming for traditional and nontraditional students. The teaching and learning processes involve both the teacher and learner in a collaborative effort to identify learning needs and resources. The teacher facilitates the student's search for knowledge by creating an atmosphere, which fosters critical thinking, self-awareness, creativity and leadership. The student shares an equal responsibility for his or her personal and professional growth by jointly planning goals, objectives, and evaluating outcomes. The quest for knowledge is the hallmark of the nursing profession through a commitment to research and continuing education.

Service Learning is the integration of academic learning while providing service to the community as a part of academic learning. Central to the concept of service learning is reflection upon the experience of providing service.  This then offers the opportunity to integrate multicultural and socioeconomic factors which can influence holistic nursing care and to discover which practices are important for particular outcomes.

Leadership refers to the use of knowledge, personal traits, and social networks to constructively and ethically influence others toward a vision or goal.  Nurse leaders possess the attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary to manage culturally competent care to diverse populations.

Caring is the essence, the central unifying focus, that characterizes nursing. In caring the nurse demonstrates a commitment to the welfare of self, individuals, families, groups and communities in relationship with a diverse multicultural population. Caring is viewed as attitudes, behaviors and values that take on a spiritual dimension. Caring behaviors are symbolic and have different meanings within and between different cultures.

October 7, 2009