Education in the clinical context: establishing a strategic framework to ensure relevance

Quality contemporary practice relies on nurses to provide health care within an embedded nexus of clinical, professional and organisational learning that leads them through a career trajectory that encourages lifelong development. Within complex health service environments this is fraught with difficulties. Enhancing practice is multifaceted requiring not just education for the acquisition of skills and abilities but time and space for reflection on experience within the clinical context. This ultimately leads to professional knowledge development. Queensland Health has developed a Nursing and Midwifery Staff Development Framework to assist nurses in structuring their experiences in the practice setting to enable their professional goals. Learning is guided within this framework through its collective modus operandi, that is, the development of teams that overlap to identify and progress the educational agenda; resources to develop consistent relevant learning material that incorporates evidence obtained through practices and the literature; and educator and clinician networks across health services throughout the state, and furthermore, links with the tertiary sector to assist in marketing, applicability and synergy with further education.