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A day at the fair: updating nurse competencies.

14 September 2012 • Nursing Management www.nursingmanagement.com Through national initiatives and the passage of the Affordable Care Act, recent focus has been on providing safe, high-quality healthcare. Since 2003, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has promoted quality improvement and patient-centered evidence-based practice (EBP) as central components of healthcare.1 The IOM’s 2010 report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health suggests that achieving these goals will require a transformation of the work environment.2 One of the report’s recommendations encourages the development of a culture of lifelong learning, and calls for nursing school faculty to partner with healthcare organizations to develop competencies that are updated regularly. As a result, graduates and nurses alike will be better prepared to meet the current and future healthcare needs of our patient populations.2 The future of nursing, as set forth by the IOM, will require healthcare professionals to embrace EBP. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, professional nursing practice is grounded in the translation of current evidence into practice.3 Acute care environments, specifically in rural hospitals, endeavor to provide care amidst myriad challenges, including staying abreast of current research regarding best practice and bringing it to the bedside. The pace at which new knowledge is created makes the practice that’s learned today, outdated tomorrow.4 Hospital policies and procedures are no exception and can quickly become archaic. To remedy this problem, William Newton Hospital (WNH), a 25-bed critical access hospital in Winfield, Kan., and its educational partner, Southwestern College (SC), developed a collaborative approach to benefit both organizations by implementing annual competency fairs. Since 2007, senior nursing students at SC and WNH nurse supervisors have worked together, focusing on clinical nursing staff education and EBP through these fairs.