NSG/531 Week 3: Regulations and Standards for the Program, sample paper

Scope, Competence and a Transition Study: Aligning a Community Hospital's Preceptor Development Program With Professional Development Standards, Regulation and Evidence

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

NSG/531: Program and Course Development

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The hospital, its policies and the program are a composite written for a model paper.

In Week 1, a needs assessment showed that preceptors on our medical-surgical units had not been prepared to precept, and Week 2 chose the theories that will shape how preceptors learn and what they will teach. Before objectives are written, the program must be aligned with the standards and regulations that govern professional development and orientation in our hospital. This paper names them and shows what each requires.

Professional Development Standards

The specialty of nursing professional development defines how educators in health care organizations should plan, deliver and evaluate education. Its scope and standards describe a practice cycle that begins with a needs assessment, identifies outcomes, plans and implements education and evaluates its effect, and they describe the educator's role in supporting orientation, competency management and onboarding (Harper & Maloney, 2022). For this program, the standards require that the needs assessment from Week 1 be documented, that outcomes be measurable and linked to the gap and that the program be evaluated for its effect on practice, not only on satisfaction. They also frame the preceptor as a partner in onboarding whose preparation is part of the educator's responsibility.

State Nursing Regulation

Our state's nurse practice act defines the scope of practice for registered nurses, and orientees are licensed nurses practicing under their own license. Two consequences follow. Preceptors are not legally responsible for every action of a licensed orientee, but they are responsible for their own delegation and supervision decisions and for reporting safety concerns. And the board requires every nurse to be competent in the care she provides, which means the hospital must be able to show how an orientee's competence was assessed before independent practice. A preceptor program is therefore not only an educational kindness but part of how the hospital shows each new nurse is competent to practice alone. The program must teach preceptors how competence is assessed and documented.

Accreditation Expectations

The hospital's accrediting body expects the organization to assess and document staff competence and to orient staff to their jobs and responsibilities. In practice, this means each new nurse's orientation must follow a defined plan, competencies must be validated by qualified staff and the validation must be documented. The program will therefore teach preceptors to use a competency checklist and a weekly progress record, and it will define who is qualified to sign competency validations.

Evidence From Regulatory Research

The licensing boards' national council studied transition to practice in hospitals across several states and compared outcomes for new nurses in hospitals with well-established transition programs with those in hospitals with less developed ones (Spector et al., 2015). The study's recommendations include a structured program lasting months rather than weeks, with a trained preceptor and a formal curriculum, and it associated well-established programs with better outcomes for new nurses. While this is research rather than regulation, it comes from a regulatory body and shapes what boards and hospitals expect. For our program, it supports training every preceptor, assigning one consistent preceptor where possible and extending support beyond the end of orientation, when Week 1 showed most departures occurred.

The Literature on Preceptor Programs

A review of the precepting literature proposed evidence-based elements for policies governing preceptor programs: clear criteria for selecting preceptors, formal preparation, defined responsibilities, organizational support including workload adjustment and preparation of the orientee as well as the preceptor (Ward & McComb, 2017). These elements match the gaps found in Week 1 and will guide the policy recommendations that accompany the program.

Hospital Policy

Hospital policy requires a twelve-week orientation for new graduates on medical-surgical units, a competency checklist signed before independent practice and annual competency validation for preceptors in the skills they validate. The policy does not currently define preceptor selection criteria, training or workload. The program will recommend policy changes: selection criteria of at least two years of experience and satisfactory performance, completion of the preceptor workshop before precepting, a reduced patient assignment during the first six weeks of an orientation and a goal of no more than two preceptors per orientee.

Continuing Education Requirements

If the workshop awards continuing nursing education contact hours, it must meet the requirements of the hospital's approved provider unit: a documented gap, measurable outcomes, content planned by qualified people without commercial bias and an evaluation. The Week 1 needs assessment satisfies the first requirement.

Standards for Preceptor Competence Itself

The standards also imply that preceptors must be competent in the role, not only in nursing. If a preceptor signs a competency validation, the hospital is relying on her judgment that the orientee can practice safely. The program will therefore include a competency for preceptors: completion of the workshop, a satisfactory observed precepting session and demonstrated use of the progress record and competency checklist. Preceptors will revalidate every two years, in line with the hospital's policy for other high-responsibility roles. This closes a loop that the current system leaves open, in which competence is validated by people whose own competence to validate has never been checked.

Ethical and Legal Considerations

Precepting raises questions of fairness and confidentiality that the standards touch on. Orientee progress records are personnel documents and must be stored securely and shared only with the manager and educator. Preceptors must avoid discussing an orientee's performance with other staff. When an orientee is not progressing, the program will teach preceptors to document specific, observed behaviors rather than impressions, which protects both the orientee's right to fair treatment and the hospital's duty to ensure safe practice.

Summary of Alignment

Professional development standards require a documented gap, measurable outcomes and evaluation of practice change. State regulation requires that each orientee's competence be assessed and documented and that preceptors understand their supervision responsibilities. Accreditation requires defined orientation plans and documented competency validation. Transition research supports trained preceptors, consistency and extended support. The precepting literature supports selection, preparation and workload policies. Hospital policy provides the orientation structure and will be revised to include preceptor criteria and support.

Keeping Alignment Current

Standards change. The professional development scope and standards are revised periodically, state rules are amended and accreditation expectations evolve. The educator will review the program against its governing sources each year and after any change announced by the board or the accreditor, and will record the review in the program file, so that alignment is maintained rather than assumed. Preceptors will be told of any change that affects how they document competence, since they are the people who put the standards into practice on every shift.

Conclusion

A preceptor development program sits within professional development standards, state regulation, accreditation expectations, regulatory research and hospital policy. Aligning with them turns the program into a required part of how the hospital shows new nurses are competent and makes its policy recommendations harder to ignore. Week 4 will write the program's objectives.

References

Harper, M. G., & Maloney, P. (Eds.). (2022). Nursing professional development: Scope and standards of practice (4th ed.). Association for Nursing Professional Development.

Spector, N., Blegen, M. A., Silvestre, J., Barnsteiner, J., Lynn, M. R., Ulrich, B., Fogg, L., & Alexander, M. (2015). Transition to practice study in hospital settings. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 5(4), 24-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(15)30031-4

Ward, A., & McComb, S. (2017). Precepting: A literature review. Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(5), 314-325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2017.07.007