NSG/302 Week 1 Professional Growth Worksheet Sample Paper

Baccalaureate Professional Growth Worksheet: Six QSEN Competencies Measured Against Nine Years of Cardiovascular Intensive Care Practice

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

NSG/302: Professional Contemporary Nursing Role and Practice

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The nurse, hospital and unit details are a composite written for a model paper.

What this part is doingThe title names the guiding entity, the number of competencies and the setting. The reader knows the worksheet will measure one nurse's real practice against a published standard.

Part 1: The Guiding Entity

I chose Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) as my guiding entity. QSEN was funded to define the competencies that nurses need to improve the quality and safety of health care, and it describes six: safety, quality improvement, informatics, patient-centered care, evidence-based practice, and teamwork and collaboration (Cronenwett et al., 2007). Each competency is written as knowledge, skills and attitudes, which makes it practical for a self-assessment, because I can ask what I know, what I do and what I value, and look for a different answer to each question.

QSEN fits my practice for a second reason. I work in a 16-bed cardiovascular intensive care unit where patients arrive directly from cardiac surgery, and nearly every quality measure the unit reports, from sternal wound infection to reintubation, depends on nurses meeting at least one of these competencies. The Essentials published by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing describe the same expectations for baccalaureate graduates across ten domains, and I will refer to them where they add something QSEN does not (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021).

Part 2: Why the Baccalaureate Level Matters

I have practiced for nine years with an associate degree, and I did not enroll in this program to learn to care for a patient after bypass surgery. I enrolled because the gap between my practice and baccalaureate practice is mostly outside the bedside: finding and judging evidence, using data to improve care, and leading change beyond my own assignment. Aiken et al. (2014) analyzed surgical discharges from 300 hospitals across nine countries in Europe and found that every 10-point rise in the proportion of bachelor's-prepared nurses was associated with a 7% lower likelihood of a patient dying within 30 days of admission for common surgery. That finding does not tell me why the degree matters, but it tells me that the difference is large enough to take seriously.

What this part is doingPart 1 justifies the guiding entity for this nurse's setting, and Part 2 connects the degree to patient outcomes with a figure from a large study. Both are specific to the writer rather than general statements about nursing.

Part 3: Self-Rating Against the Six Competencies

I rated each competency on a scale of 1 (beginning) to 4 (consistently strong), with the evidence for each rating.

Patient-centered care: 3. I involve families in bedside rounds and adjust teaching after surgery to what the patient can take in on the first and second days. My weakness is documentation of the patient's own goals, which I discuss but rarely record.

Teamwork and collaboration: 4. I am a charge nurse two shifts a week, I lead the handoff from the operating room team, and I use closed-loop communication during emergencies. Surgeons and perfusionists seek me out when a patient is unstable.

Evidence-based practice: 2. I follow our protocols carefully, but I have not searched a database for a clinical question since school, and I could not explain the evidence behind our chest tube, glucose or early extubation protocols. QSEN lists the skill of basing individual care plans on patient values, clinical expertise and evidence, and the attitude of valuing the need for continuous improvement based on new knowledge (Cronenwett et al., 2007). I have the attitude but not the skill.

Quality improvement: 2. I know our unit's measures because they are posted, but I have not yet joined a project that changed one, and I could not read a run chart with confidence.

Safety: 3. I use bar-code scanning and independent double checks for insulin and heparin, and I report near misses. I rate myself below 4 because I report events without following what happens to the report afterward.

Informatics: 3. I chart efficiently and use the electronic record's trend views to spot changes in hemodynamics. I have not yet used data from the record to answer a question larger than one patient.

What this part is doingThe self-rating gives a number and evidence for every competency. The two low ratings are explained with the QSEN wording, which shows the writer has read the guiding entity rather than paraphrasing it.

Part 4: The Two Gaps

My two gaps are evidence-based practice and quality improvement, and they are connected. In both cases, I am good at carrying out decisions other people make from evidence and data, and I am not yet able to make or question those decisions myself. A recent example shows the cost. Our unit changed its chest tube removal criteria last year, and a newer nurse asked me why. I could explain the new steps, but not the reason for the change or the study behind it, and I sent her to the educator. A baccalaureate nurse should be able to answer that question at the bedside, or at least know how to find the answer.

The AACN Essentials describe the same expectation in the domain on scholarship for the nursing discipline, which asks graduates to evaluate research, translate evidence into practice and identify gaps in the evidence (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). That is the skill I am missing.

Part 5: Improvement Plan

Goal 1: Evidence-based practice. Before this course ends, I will write one searchable clinical question about a practice on my unit, search CINAHL and MEDLINE through the university library, and summarize the three strongest sources in a one-page brief for my unit's practice council. Success will be measured by presenting the brief at the council meeting in the second month of the program.

Goal 2: Quality improvement. Within the first six months of the program, I will join my unit's quality committee and take part in one improvement project from baseline to the first review of results. I will learn to read the run charts the committee uses, and I will measure my progress by explaining one chart to my manager without notes.

Goal 3: Safety, as a smaller goal. Beginning next month, I will follow up on each event report I file, using the reporting system's status feature, and I will bring one report's outcome to a staff huddle each quarter so that reporting leads somewhere visible.

What this part is doingEach goal names the competency, the action, the measure and the date. The plan answers the gaps found in Part 3 instead of listing general intentions.

Part 6: Reflection

Writing this worksheet changed how I think about my own practice. I have assumed that nine years of strong clinical care meant I was a complete nurse, and in the competencies that happen at the bedside, I am close to it. The competencies that happen away from the bedside, asking why we do what we do and proving that a change worked, are where the baccalaureate degree adds something I do not yet have. The plan above is modest on purpose. By the end of this program, I want to be the nurse who can answer the newer nurse's question herself.

What this part is doingThe reflection closes on a concrete change in the writer's thinking and returns to the example from Part 4. Every source cited in the worksheet appears in the reference list.

References

Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Bruyneel, L., Van den Heede, K., Griffiths, P., Busse, R., Diomidous, M., Kinnunen, J., Kózka, M., Lesaffre, E., McHugh, M. D., Moreno-Casbas, M. T., Rafferty, A. M., Schwendimann, R., Scott, P. A., Tishelman, C., van Achterberg, T., & Sermeus, W. (2014). Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: A retrospective observational study. The Lancet, 383(9931), 1824-1830. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62631-8

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.

Cronenwett, L., Sherwood, G., Barnsteiner, J., Disch, J., Johnson, J., Mitchell, P., Sullivan, D. T., & Warren, J. (2007). Quality and safety education for nurses. Nursing Outlook, 55(3), 122-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2007.02.006

How this NSG 302 Week 1 example is structured

Search results for NSG/302 Week 1 point to a professional growth worksheet or improvement plan built on a guiding entity's competencies, the knowledge, skills and attitudes a baccalaureate nurse needs. This sample uses QSEN as the guiding entity because its competencies are written as knowledge, skills and attitudes. It answers the worksheet prompts in order: the guiding entity, a self-rating for each competency with evidence, the two gaps, and an improvement plan with measurable goals and dates. Students search this week as NSG 302 Week 1, NSG302 Wk 1 or NSG/302 Wk 1; all three are the same assignment.

NSG/302 Week 1 questions, answered

What does NSG/302 Week 1 usually ask for?

Public listings for NSG/302 Week 1 describe a professional growth worksheet or improvement plan: choose a guiding entity such as QSEN or the AACN Essentials, identify the competencies and the knowledge, skills and attitudes a BSN nurse needs, rate your own practice, and plan how you will close the gaps.

What is a guiding entity?

An organization whose standards define what a nurse should know and do. QSEN, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Nurses Association and state boards of nursing are the common choices in RN to BSN courses.

How specific should the improvement plan be?

Specific enough that someone else could check it. Each goal should name the action, the measure of success and a date, and it should connect to a competency where the self-rating showed a real gap.

Write yours, or have the desk draft it

This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official University of Phoenix document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.

NSG/302 Week 1: Professional Growth Worksheet, sample paper