Nine Core Competencies for Quality Healthcare: A Review by NONPF

The Healthcare sector is considered to be an important part of individual well-being. Nurses are considered to be an integral part of the healthcare sector as they are responsible for providing a better quality of care to the patients. NONPF (The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties is responsible for implementing core competencies factors to various nurse practitioners. This paper will talk about nine core competencies as mentioned by NONPF. This paper will demonstrate why each of them is necessary for quality healthcare.

Scientific foundations are considered to be an important competency in nursing professionals. It has been seen that scientific foundations through NONPF  help the nurses to understand the importance of evidence-based practice and also help them understand vulnerability or diversity factors related to the patient health (Pulcini, Hanson & Johnson, 2019). It has been witnessed that when the nurses are having ideas or knowledge regarding scientific foundation then it helps them take assistance from a discipline like science and helps them involve the given data to ensure their nursing practice.

Providing care is not the duty of the nurses but providing quality care is the duty of the nurses. NONPF talks about the quality of care which should be provided to the patient with the help of evidence-based research and information (Vanderhoef & Delaney, 2017).  One major thing which has been witnessed is that quality care always helps in achieving good health outcomes. It is a known fact that NONPF defines the quality competencies which nurses can adopt in their care plan and this quality can be implemented with the help of using the best available information. It is considered to be an important competency as it helps nurses in delivering the right set of quality care.

It is one of the most necessary aspects of nursing as it helps in delivering excellent service to the patients. Leadership competency is all about understanding different cultures and having a culture competency factor which is considered to be an important element in the healthcare sector. It also helps in understanding the importance of engaging with the clients and having a good set of communication with the clients. This competency helps nurses to apply their reflective and learning skills while providing care to the patients.

NONPF has helped nurses to include technology factors in providing care to the patients. it has been witnessed that it is more like the ability to use the latest technologies and communicational tools to improve clinical practice (Chan et al., 2020). It has been witnessed that role of technology competency is to make sure that nurses and students learn more about the inclusion of technology factors while providing care to the patients. it has been seen that technology has provided a wide room of scope for the nursing sector as they can now use the technology as one of the ways to improve the efficiency of the care provided to the patients.  it has helped nursing professionals to understand the health circumstances of the patients in the right direction.

Quality

Health policies are turning out to be an important element of healthcare settings. It has been seen that NONPF also empathizes on health policies that help improve the healthcare facilities (Thomas et al., 2017). It has been noticed that health policies are just not bound towards providing care to the patients. But policy competency also focuses on guiding nursing students about the need for legalizations to deal with the challenges to improve the population health. it has been seen that there is a need for students to understand legislation related to healthcare and to ensure better understanding students must enroll themselves to acquire better policy competencies.

Practice Inquiry is all about translational research as it involves taking theoretical knowledge. It is more about involving that knowledge in clinical settings. It has been sent that the biggest learning in the healthcare sector comes from evidence-based knowledge research. In NONPF, it is all about including the gained knowledge in clinical healthcare and working towards providing good quality care treatment to the patients (Quallich et al., 2015). Practice Inquiry is about improving patient health outcomes with the help of evidence-based research. NONPF has helped nurses to think critically while providing care in the healthcare sector.

Competency of Health Delivery System includes proper planning, creating, and implementing the care program. It has been seen that the health delivery system revolves around organizational knowledge that helps in improving the healthcare settings. It is important to have proper use of public health resources as that will eventually help in providing much care to the people in the community. The health delivery system is more about providing quality care to the patients and also making sure that stakeholders of the healthcare system are satisfied with the health delivery system. This health delivery system is more about the quality program which helps in increasing collaboration in the healthcare sector. It also helps in assessing the patient needs and improving the informatics system to provide quality healthcare service.

NONPF is all about improving independent practice so that care is not hindered by any hurdles. Independent practice is about that professional who has enough medical knowledge and who can provide healthcare service guidance and care backed by law. This competency allows the students to provide quality care treatment effectively. It is more like guiding individuals so that they can independently manage healthcare issues. it has been seen that through independent practice, nursing students can learn more about health promotion and also prevention strategies.

Leadership

Ethical issues are common in healthcare settings as it has been noticed that there are many issues like cultural diversity issues which can be a major problem. Ethics competencies help nursing students in understanding the ethical challenges so that they can deal with any ethical issue which comes across their health practice.  Nursing students learn the ability of decision making which helps in making ethical decisions. It has been seen that NONPF ethical competency helps in developing the morality factor in clinical practice.

As a nursing professional, my major purpose will be about adapting these competencies in my profession. It will help in providing quality care to the patients. These competencies provide major opportunities to promote health issues and also ensure that there is quality treatment provided to the patients. I am looking forward to engaging for a social change through my nursing role. Health workers are an important part of the social system as it has been noted that I can bring a change in the healthcare setting through improving the care services.

References

Chan, T. E., Lockhart, J. S., Schreiber, J. B., & Kronk, R. (2020). Determining nurse practitioner core competencies using a Delphi approach. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(3), 200-217.

Pulcini, J., Hanson, C., & Johnson, J. (2019). National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties: A 40-year history of preparing nurse practitioners for practice. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 31(11), 633-639.

Quallich, S. A., Bumpus, S. M., & Lajiness, S. (2015). Competencies for the nurse practitioner working with adult urology patients. Urologic nursing, 35(5), 221-230.

Thomas, A., Crabtree, M. K., Delaney, K., Dumas, M. A., Kleinpell, R., Marfell, J., & Wolf, A. (2017). Nurse practitioner core competencies content. The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties.

Vanderhoef, D. M., & Delaney, K. R. (2017). National organization of nurse practitioner faculties: 2016 survey of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner programs. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 23(2), 159-165.