Human becoming and 80/20: an innovative professional development model for nurses

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Professional Development

Background:

• Nurses often face demanding workloads impacting professional growth.
• Integrating dedicated professional development time is crucial for nursing excellence.
• Patient-centered care models require structured support for nursing staff.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a nursing professional development model.
• To assess the impact of dedicating 20% of nursing time to professional development.
• To examine effects on patient care, staff satisfaction, and operational efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative descriptive preproject-process-postproject design.
• Longitudinal, repeated measures, descriptive-comparative method.
• Involved 33 nurses, 11 leaders, and 55 patients/family members.

Main Results:

• Decreased overtime, sustained education hours, increased workload hours per patient day.
• Improved patient and staff satisfaction scores; zero turnover in year 2.
• Variable direct labor costs increased but not significantly more than control units.

Conclusions:

• The professional development model positively impacted nursing practice and outcomes.
• Sustained professional development time is feasible and beneficial.
• Further research on model sustainability and scalability is warranted.