Nursing Education and Knowledge Retention

[woodsjj]

Hi,

I am a registered nurse in Australia. I have been a nurse for over 18 years and worked in a variety of roles. I am writing to ask for feedback regarding an idea a friend of mine and I thought of. Given the volume of information that nurses are required to remember from nursing care to regulatory requirements and everything in between. We thinking of ways we could enhance nursing education and retention of knowledge. Using a regulatory or accreditation site visits as an example, my experience the past when prepping for this is to pull staff a side and test them on critical information repeatedly – this took 30-45min. However, the level of retention with this tactic was variable.

We were thinking of using an app type device to push out 1-2 questions per week via a smart device. The responses could be tracked at the user level or department level, depending on the response additional resources would be allocated to address any knowledge deficit. So rather then blanket educating everyone, the education could be targeted toward the department or individuals that have the need. This tool could also be used to validate knowledge retention following training classes or to share tips of the da/education flash cards. This would enable organizations better support nurse education and also try and reduce the amount of time nurses are pulled away from patient care.

1. Does this sound like something that would be useful or that nurses or organizations would use?

2. What does your origination currently use to support nurse education and retention?

Thanks in advance for you feedback.

Jeffrey

[dishes, BSN, RN]

I don't know about other nurses, but I already already receive a huge volume of emails from my workplace, regulatory body and professional associations. Additional electronic information will not improve my knowledge retention, it will just add to my sense of information overload.