NSN902 Foundations of Safe Clinical Practice
To view more information for this unit, select Unit Outline from the list below. Please note the teaching period for which the Unit Outline is relevant.
| Unit code: | NSN902 |
|---|---|
| Corequisite(s): | NSN910 |
| Assumed Knowledge: | Graduate capabilities developed in undergraduate study |
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Timetable | Details in HiQ, if available |
| Availabilities |
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| CSP student contribution | $555 |
| Domestic tuition unit fee | $2,976 |
| International unit fee | $4,236 |
Unit Outline: Semester 1 2024, Kelvin Grove, Internal
| Unit code: | NSN902 |
|---|---|
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Co-requisite: | NSB910 Nursing therapeutics 1: Health assessment & clinical reasoning |
| Assumed Knowledge: | Graduate capabilities developed in undergraduate study |
| Coordinator: | Joanne Cupples | joanne.cupples@qut.edu.au |
Overview
This unit is a foundational unit that introduces you to the professional nursing scope of practice. It focuses on the development of foundational knowledge and skills in the on-campus setting in preparation for practice. A series of mandatory clinical practice sessions (CPS) develops your skills in safe practice. Failure to attend all mandatory CPS means you are unable to progress to clinical placement. You will complete 160 hours of clinical practice within an industry healthcare setting. You will develop scientific knowledge, clinical reasoning and tenets of evidence-based practice to plan, implement and evaluate safe and responsive nursing care. The national Quality Use of Medicine requirements are integrated into skills development. Course themes emphasised in this unit are evidence-based practice, scientific foundations of practice, person-centred care, health technology and health informatics, and interprofessional collaboration.
This is a designated unit which is essential to your course progression. Designated units include professional experience units, units requiring the development of particular skills, and units requiring demonstration of certain personal qualities. If you fail to achieve a satisfactory level of performance in a designated unit, you may be excluded from enrolment or will be put on academic probation. If you fail a designated unit twice within your course, you may be excluded. Supplementary assessment is not available on designated units.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:
- Apply underpinning knowledge from nursing and related disciplines, including anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology, to support evidence based decisions for planning and provision of safe person-centred care
- Safely and accurately perform medication calculations and demonstrate safe administration of medicines in both the simulated environment and clinical practice setting.
- Demonstrate beginner level provision of safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing care for consumers, families and the broader community.
- Demonstrate novice level evidence-based practice, clinical reasoning, and decision making to provide culturally safe, quality, person-centred care across the lifespan, consistent with the NMBA Registered Nurse Standards of Practice, Aged Care Quality Standards and the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.
- Enact communication skills to develop foundational care plans for individuals across the lifespan reflective of culturally safe and person-centred care and therapeutic communication.
Content
Course themes: Evidence-based foundations of safe practice; collaborative practice; digital literacy; cultural safety
Aged Care Standards: 1) Consumer dignity and choice; 2) Ongoing assessment and planning with consumers; 3) Personal care and clinical care; 4) Services and supports for daily living; 5) Organization Service Environment: 7) Human resources (delivery of safe and quality care within scope of practice); 8. Organizational Governance.
National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards: 2) Partnering with Consumers, 3) Preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection; 4) Medication safety; 5) Comprehensive care (focus on preventing and managing pressure injuries and preventing falls and harm from falls; 6) Communicating for safety
Global/national/regional health priorities: 3) Injury prevention and control; 7) Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions; 9) Dementia
ePortfolio: Clinical practice goals and reflection elements
Concepts addressed within these areas incorporate the application of clinical reasoning processes and evidence to support clinical decisions for person-centred care across a range of ages and developmental levels.
Development of knowledge relevant to fundamental dimensions of comprehensive care including:
- Patient safety and professional practice issues applied across the lifespan
- Foundational care and clinical reasoning applied across the lifespan
- Fundamental care provision techniques including hygiene feeding and oral care, applied across the lifespan
- Pathophysiology, assessment and management of selected National Health Priority Areas and conditions
- National Health Priorities: Dementia, arthritis and injury prevention and control, joint diseases – osteoarthritis and associated mobility and functional problems
- Communication and nursing care;
- particularly in relation to people with dementia.
- Clinical handover
Clinical knowledge and skills relevant to fundamental skills of patient care. Key areas of knowledge and skill development in this unit include:
- Infection control procedures including hand hygiene and use of PPE
- Manual handling techniques; focus on preventing and managing pressure injuries and preventing falls and harm from falls
- Assisting with elimination
- Assisting with ADLs
- Nasogastric tube insertion, management and PEG feeding
- Medication Safety: quality use of medicines
- Medication administration: oral/topical/rectal, nebulised, enteral tube, parenteral, intravenous fluid management
- Oxygenation support
- Documents care provision in patient charts and records
- Simple wound care.
Learning Approaches
On-campus
This unit will use a blend of authentic face to face, clinical practice lab and online activities to introduce clinical reasoning and evidence-based nursing practice skills. You will develop and practice these skills through analysis of real-world health case studies, supported by online learning to develop foundational scientific knowledge, quality use of medicine (medical calculations), key skills in foundational care, person-centred care and therapeutic communication and culturally safe nursing practice.
To appreciate the value of peers and the knowledge and experience they bring to the learning environment, small group discussions will use structured exercises, evidence, and resources to support collaborative learning and inquiry using real world scenario-based cases. Integrated learning support mechanisms are embedded (academic literacy, science-based resources, peer to peer and academic support form part of the student learning journey).
Clinical Placement
Experiential learning is at the forefront of this unit with you spending time in the off-campus healthcare environment. Preparation for clinical practice in this unit involves review of concepts explored in other units to facilitate application to practice. You will prepare for this off-campus experience through simulated clinical situations and small group, clinical-skill-based practice activities incorporating the use of a range of healthcare technologies.
Prior to clinical placement you will also be directed to revisit safe practice principles, quality use of medicines and administration of same, drawing on the unit learning activities. A peer learning community of practice will be used to foster active collaboration and to provide additional support and social engagement during placement off campus. Clinical supervisors will facilitate and support transfer of knowledge and skills to the real-world context in line with the requirements to satisfactorily complete the Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool (ANSAT). Learning experiences will include a focus on promoting implementation of evidence-based, scientific knowledge, communication, critical inquiry, digital literacy, and intra- and interprofessional collaboration as an ethical, socially inclusive, and culturally safe practitioner.
This unit requires attendance at an off-campus clinical placement. Placement opportunities are negotiated by QUT with healthcare facilities and are finite in number. You cannot organise your own placements. You must be available for shift-work rostering, which enables patient care to be delivered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Travel may be involved, and clinical placements can occur during semester breaks. Any absence from an off-campus clinical placement will reduce the opportunity for competence development – student performance may not be assessed and a grade of ‘Unsatisfactory’ may be awarded.
Where absence is due to special or unforeseeable circumstances independently supported by documentation (e.g. medical certificate), every effort will be made to accommodate the student in an alternate placement within the same semester. If due to the nature of the student’s special circumstances and/or limited placement availability an alternate placement cannot be negotiated, the student will be advised to seek withdrawal from the unit without academic or financial penalty. Standard course progression cannot be guaranteed following an Unsuccessful grade or withdrawal from a clinical placement unit.
You will receive further additional information and explanation consistent with this statement in lectures and information will be added to unit Canvas sites.
Feedback on Learning and Assessment
You will receive feedback on your learning and assessment through:
- Ongoing formative feedback via self-check exercises, peer feedback in tutorials and labs, and through whole of class feedback in online communities
- Progressive written or recorded feedback on academic/professional literacy and applied medical calculation skills on both formative and summative assessment tasks via Turnitin, in addition to the feedback on the Criterion Reference Assessment sheet to support your first placement.
- Feedback on clinical performance will be provided by the clinical facilitator using the ANSAT tool at an interim timepoint halfway through your clinical placement and formally at the end of clinical placement
Assessment
Overview
There are three assessments to be completed in this unit. You must attend 100% of the mandatory clinical practice sessions, achieve 100% in the medication calculations (within Med+Safe), and achieve all criteria on the clinical performance assessment tool to achieve an overall satisfactory grade for this unit. Failure to attend all mandatory CPS means you are unable to progress to clinical placement. There is no resubmission, as there is significant support to ensure successful achievement. The Med+Safe application has many practice tests in-built for you to practice achieving 100%. These are requirements for you (and QUT) to ensure you can safely practice and act appropriately in an emergency as required by the National Health and Safety standards and ANMAC safety of the public standards.
Unit Grading Scheme
S (Satisfactory) / U (Unsatisfactory)
Assessment Tasks
Assessment: Case Study
You will undertake a series of written questions related to nursing care provision. This assessment provides an opportunity to refine and receive feedback on your academic literacy skills essential for future written assessments throughout your course. Your work will be assessed and you'll be given formative feedback on your academic literacy skills.
This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.
Assessment: Med+Safe
The exam consists of multiple choice questions regarding safe practice and a MedSafe test. Test questions focus on calculations and the development of knowledge and skills associated with medication administration and quality use of medicines.
Evidence of 100% successful completion of the required test in the Med+Safe application during the invigilated school-based exam time period.
MedSafe certificates are awarded once you have achieved 100% for the designated test. The MedSafe certificate uploaded must reflect the date and time of your invigilated test, including your name exactly as it appears in the student's enrolment.
You may be eligible for one further opportunity to undertake this assessment if you do not achieve 100% in MedSafe. The same assessment conditions of invigilated exam apply.
Failure to complete this assessment within the specified timeframes and invigilated conditions will result in an unsatisfactory grade in this unit and withdrawal from your off-campus clinical work experience.
Threshold Assessment:
Professional accreditation mandates demonstration of safe practice in both skills performance and medication safety prior to work integrated learning.
Assessment: Clinical Practice (ANSAT)
Placement performance - 4 weeks / 160 hours of clinical placement.
In your assigned clinical placement, you will be assessed on the demonstration of a range of skills in relation to the provision of safe, quality, person-centred care. Assessment performance is determined in line with the NMBA Registered Nurse Standards for Practice (ANSAT). You are required to demonstrate satisfactory achievement of the seven standards (and related criteria) for this level. Each criteria must be achieved satisfactorily and 100% attendance is required at off campus clinical placement.
Threshold Assessment:
Due to the essential professional skills demonstrated in this assessment you must achieve a passing grade in this assessment to complete the unit.
Academic Integrity
Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.
Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.
You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.
Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.
Requirements to Study
Requirements
A blue card is required to complete this unit. A blue card confirms that you have passed a screening of your criminal history (the Working with Children Check) and have been approved to work with children and young people. For more information on the blue card and how to apply please visit the QUT website.
Blue Card
A blue card is required to complete this unit. A blue card confirms that you have passed a screening of your criminal history (the Working with Children Check) and have been approved to work with children and young people. For more information on the blue card and how to apply please visit the QUT website.
Resources
Resource Materials
Prescribed text(s)
Crisp, J., Douglas, C., Rebeiro, G., & Waters, D. (2021). Potter & Perry’s fundamentals of nursing (6th edition ; Australia and New Zealand). Elsevier Australia a division of Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd.
Med+Safe application (https://medsafe.com.au)
Rebeiro, G., Wilson, D., & Fuller, S. (2021). Fundamentals of nursing : clinical skills workbook (4th edition.). Elsevier Australia a division of Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd.
Recommended text(s)
Brown, D., Edwards, H., Buckley, T. C. T., & Aitken, R. L. (2020). Lewis’s medical-surgical nursing : assessment and management of clinical problems (5th Australia and New Zealand Edition.). Elsevier
Calleja, P., Theobald, K., Harvey, T., & Estes, M. E. Z. (2024). Estes health assessment & physical examination (4th Australian & New Zealand edition.). Cengage Learning Australia.
Risk Assessment Statement
There are no out of the ordinary risks associated with this unit. Substantial computer-based work will be required, please make sure you adjust your workstation and take regular rest breaks.
During the learning activities associated with this unit, you will be exposed to situations in the Clinical Simulation Centre (CSC) that are deemed to be low risk. It is essential that, in relation to the following situations, you:
On campus Clinical Simulation Centre (CSC):
- Act in accordance with supervisor instruction during the designated clinical practice sessions
- Act in accordance with the guidelines provided for student practice in the Clinical Simulation Centre (CSC) including the usage of equipment
- Undertake required theoretical preparation prior to practice sessions in the Clinical Simulation Centre (CSC).
During clinical work experience, you are exposed to a range of risks and hazards that are normally encountered by nurses practising in a variety of health care settings. When undertaking clinical work experience you are automatically subject to the workplace health and safety policies, procedures and regulations of the healthcare facility. You are required by law to comply with these policies and procedures at all times. In order to minimise risks in this unit, it is essential that you:
- Participate in the health care facility orientation session
- Act in accordance with organisational workplace health, and safety policies
- Are appropriately supervised by a registered nurse at all times
- Undertake the required theoretical and practical preparation prior to commencement of the placement
- Are aware of specific risks and hazards associated with the particular clinical area to which you have been assigned
- Act within your scope of practice and the requirements of this unit
- Maintain your personal health and immunisation status.
Course Learning Outcomes
This unit is designed to support your development of the following course/study area learning outcomes.NS89 Master of Nursing - Entry to Practice
- Analyse and apply scientific knowledge and skills in context of nursing and related disciplines to the provision of holistic, person-centred, evidence-based nursing across the life span
Relates to: Case Study, Med+Safe , Clinical Practice (ANSAT) - Evaluate practice outcomes drawing upon critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills to examine person-centred nursing care and make evidence-based decisions
Relates to: Case Study, Med+Safe , Clinical Practice (ANSAT) - Practice as an ethical, socially inclusive and culturally safe practitioner, reflective of your professional nursing identity across a range of health service settings
Relates to: Case Study, Clinical Practice (ANSAT) - Enact and sustain effective communication skills, therapeutic relationships and professional capabilities to practice independently and in inter and intraprofessional teams, to ensure safe person-centred care
Relates to: Clinical Practice (ANSAT)