Nursing

Using the Clinical Skills and Procedures Self-Assessment Form specific to your NP track (AGPCNP):

Rate yourself according to your confidence level performing the procedures identified on the Clinical Skills and Procedures Self-Assessment Form.
Based on your ratings, summarize your strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Based on your self-assessment and theory of nursing practice, develop 4 goals and objectives for this practicum experience. Include them on the designated area of the form.

A clear and comprehensive purpose statement, introduction, and conclusion needed

ANSWER

Self-Assessment of Clinical Skills

Introduction

AGPCNP offers care to adults with critical, acute, and complex mental and physical illnesses across the entire adult age. APCNPs focus on offering services that range from disease prevention to acute care that stabilize the patient’s condition, eliminating complications to restore maximum health condition (Zerwekh, 2018). This paper will focus on reflecting on my clinical skill, strengths, areas of improvement, goals and objectives as an AGPCNP. It is important as a nurse practitioner to identify strengths and improvements. Good strengths make an individual more focused, while areas of improvement ensure that one improves to be better in the long run. The paper will address three strengths and weaknesses and four goals and objectives for the practicum experience.

Strengths

Communication Skills

Effective communication by nurses is a vital asset for offering positive interventions and treatment outcomes. Success in delivering care for adults with acute problems demand acute care. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2010), establishing a positive relationship begins with communication, which is built on active listening, connection, confirmation, and comfort. For this reason, communication has been essential in the way I understand my patients and offer ideas to them. It is also important to communicate effectively with families and patients. This is because communicating effectively with other healthcare practitioners, families, and patients enables positive patient outcomes. For instance, through my strong communication skills, I have been able to talk to patients and their care providers about preventative care.

Patience

Considerably, many old patients have been struggling with memory issues and may encounter hard times remembering certain guidelines, experiences, or instructions. Therefore, through my patience, I have been able to engage effectively with the patients. Ideally, patience shows the clients that you respect them and have a holding space for them. It also shows the patients that you are interested in what they are saying. Through patience, I have connected with the patients by understanding what is going on and acknowledging their emotional state while engaging in an open and unbiased manner.

Professionalism

Professionalism is linked to speaking and acting professionally while taking care of Patients. This has been my strongest skill since I highly respect the values of time, response, and learning. Considerably many old patients have suffered from chronic conditions that need keeping the patients safe. Therefore, I have focused on learning more and understanding patient health problems professionally to maintain the patient’s safety standards.

Areas of Improvement

Differential diagnosis

I tend to miss some differential diagnoses her and there. It has been challenging for me to get through objective and subjective data, comprehensive Patient history, focused examination, and patient’s history that leads to an accurate diagnosis. Even though ordered and interpreting a diagnostic test is a fundamental skill, following recognition patterns has been a great challenge. However, I will improve my differential diagnosis by following the patterns of symptoms and signs recognition and thinking about the life-threatening diagnosis that can put the patient’s life in danger.

Attention to Detail

Perfecting and developing my attention to detail has been one area that I need to improve on to lower the number of medical mistakes. Considerably, developing attention to detail has ensured that you avoid medical mistakes and ensure that I offer great patient care. The elderly demand a care provider who actively listens to them and understands verbal cues from the patient. One way to improve my attention to detail in diagnostic tests and evaluations is through working from a different view. This means thinking about the to-do list as people-oriented rather than task-oriented and being mindful and present to each patient experience and avoid distraction from the long to-do list

Critical Thinking

To improve my differential diagnosis, interpretation of diagnostic tests, and formulate the plan of care for the patients, I need to improve on my critical thinking skills. Resources and time have always been limited in supply, and the to do list has been long. Integrating critical thinking skills will balance evidence, experiences, and outcomes, thus effective solutions and plans for the patients (Moore, 2016).

Goals

• To collaborate with healthcare providers and rely on essential resources to implement continuous, high-quality care to adults, adolescents, and their families within three months.
• To Coordinate with multidisciplinary teams in delivering high-quality care to boost the continuum of care for the elderly with two months.
• To illustrate high confidence in diagnosis, assessment, and management of health needs for adults, adolescents, and families within five months.
• To improve management and assessment of chronic adult primary care health problems in primary care settings within five months.

Objectives

• To improve the provision of care to adults across the varying lifespan within three months.
• To boost health education to meet the growing needs of patients across the varying lifespan within five months.
• To utilize knowledge of system and organization, healthcare technologies, and quality improvement to ensure high-quality patient care within six months.
• To apply advanced nursing knowledge and skills to manage, plan, and coordinate effective healthcare for patients within six months.

Conclusion

The demand for AGPCNP has increased due to the growing needs of the aging population. The role of AGPCNP is to offer primary care to adults in various lifespans. AGPCNP knowledge and skills have effectively planning, managing, and coordinating appropriate care for patient populations. The self-assessment form has effectively identified the strengths and opportunities for improvement to advance skills and knowledge as an AGPCNP.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2010). Adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner competencies. Washington, DC: Author.

Moore, K. S. (2016). Clinical Decision Making for Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioners. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Zerwekh, J. (2018). Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Certification Review-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.