Professional profiles of nurses contain remarkably little information about the division and delegation of tasks between doctors and nurses. This applies not only to the Dutch file, but also to Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Research conducted by Neville shows this. As nurses take on more and more tasks from doctors, you would expect professional profiles to provide this…
Although all five professional profiles describe an aspect of task division, such as delegating tasks to other health care professionals, the physician is not always mentioned.
Netherlands and Belgium They are still more concerned with the division of tasks than in other countries: for example, these professional files specify who is responsible for medical procedures, a nurse or a doctor. The profiles of both countries also refer to legislation, in the Netherlands this is the BIG Act, in our case the so-called Quality Act. The UK, Canada and US occupational profiles address division of tasks briefly and do not discuss division of tasks with the clinician explicitly.
In three of the five countries, the competencies are clearly described from the theoretical or legal basis of these competencies: in the Netherlands, it is about CanMEDS roles, in Belgium the professional profile follows the European guidelines for the recognition of professional qualifications and in the US professional profile the competencies are organized according to a framework Multi-specialty. In Canada and the United Kingdom, there is no basis on which competencies are prescribed, the study analyses.
Internationally only broadly comparable
All nurses’ competencies in various profiles can be broadly classified into the same ten areas. In this regard, and at the level of specific competencies, there are clear differences between countries. For example, the professional profile in the US places a lot of emphasis on the use of technology, whereas in the UK this is rarely discussed.
Classification of nurses’ competencies into 10 areas
- Professional attitude
- Clinical care in practice
- Communication and collaboration
- Health promotion and prevention
- Organizing and planning care
- Leadership
- Quality and safety of care
- Training and education (continuing).
- Technology and e-health care
- Support self-management and patient monitoring
About search
Neville studied the professional profiles (called “competence frameworks” in English) of nurses with a bachelor’s degree (higher professional education) from different countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. This qualitative analysis of the document is part of the PhD research ‘Nurses of the Future’ by Neville researcher Renate Witt.
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