Nurse leaders promoting the co-operation between the healthcare and higher education
Author: Hannele Tiittanen
LAB University of Applied Sciences (Lahti, Finland)
Chief and senior nurses are in key positions to develop both nursing staff and nursing functions in healthcare settings. The main aim is to improve the quality of care and health of the population. The competent nursing staff is an essential element to guarantee the quality of care. Still, the development also needs nursing research to support continuous and evidence-based development. According to the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL, 2015), the nurse leader’s competence areas are, for example, evidence-based practice/outcome measurement and research, and academic relationships. Creating an educational partnership with the regional higher education institute and building up the long-term nursing research programme to develop nursing in healthcare settings would serve both partners and the population in the region.
As the ProInCa project has launched the Center of Nursing Excellence of Kazakhstan (CNE) platform (https://nursekz.com/), it provides a perfect place for networking and collaboration for the chief and senior nurses for improving nursing practice. Being active in the CNE platform empowers nurse leaders when developing the quality of nursing care. CNE brings theory to practice and enhances the development of the science of care. CNE serves as a collaborative and online platform between nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing research. CNE actively collects, promotes, and shares information: evidence-based clinical guidelines for patient care, teaching materials for nursing, research of nurses, and the latest news. The base of the CNE is the knowledge triangle (Figure 1), combining research, education, and innovation. All the triangle elements are linked together to promote the knowledge building. Chief and senior nurses should be encouraged to take the driver’s role in cooperation with the regional education sector and initiatives to widen participation and to start dialogue and co-creation with the academic community. Long term commitment and strategy building for regional care development should be a common interest. In turn, this would enable the creation of new and even radical care innovations for the population’s health. The first step for the cooperation is to invite stakeholders in the local medical university to meet and discuss the collaboration and nursing research needs.