Desenvolvimento de competências especializadas para cuidados de qualidade

Abstract

This report illustrates the knowledge acquired during the XXII Master's Degree in Nursing, with a specialization in Medical-Surgical Nursing, at Institute of Health Sciences of Universidade Católica Portuguesa. It’s designed according to a descriptive and critical-reflexive methodology of the experiences and activities carried out during the internship in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and in an Emergency Department (ED), of two hospitals in Portugal’s northern region, in order to attain and develop skills and expertise in the specialization’s field. This report aims to: describe the learning process developed in each internship’s context; demonstrate progress in mobilizing knowledge in the face of new and complex situations; substantiate the critical judgment’s improvement that guided the achievement of each objective and the activities carried out; and to critically describe the process of acquiring specialized skills in delivering care to patients in critical condition. The clinical environments framed the basis from which the skills’ acquiring process was implemented, through mobilizing previously acquired knowledge and carrying out an intense bibliographic research, in order to ensure the widest scientific knowledge and evidence-based practice. The report is structured according to the Specialist Nurse’s four Domains of Common Skills: The improvement opportunities identified in the ED, regarding observance for patients and families’ privacy and intimacy provided an opportunity to examine in professional, ethical and legal responsibility’s Domain. The Domain of continuous quality improvement represents a central aspect of providing excellent nursing care, being ubiquitous in all fields of practice. In this context, I focused on aspects related to safety of care, namely regarding falls’ prevention and safety in the use of medication in the ED, identifying opportunities for improvement and suggesting changes. At the ICU I developed activities in the area of healthcare associated infections’ prevention, namely in intubation-associated pneumonia prevention. Nowadays, nursing information systems are acknowledged as an invaluable tool in documenting nursing practice, this current issue was one of the subjects included in care management’s Domain. In the professional learning’s Domain, I highlight the scientific research performed at the ICU, with the objective of characterizing nurses’ workload, which provided relevant conclusions for clinical practice, while stimulating the development of researching skills in in the specialization’s field. This report intends to demonstrate the growth of specialized skills, highlighting the specialist nurse’s role within the healthcare teams, namely, in the direct provision of differentiated care, in clinical supervision, in management and in scientific research. Despite expressing the culmination of a training process, actually it opens a new path for excellence in care.

Date of Award	30 Oct 2020
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ana Sousa (Supervisor)