We often hear from residents and leaders we are working with that residents want to learn more hands-on clinical skills during their residency program. These clinical skills are often defined as various nursing tasks or procedures such as IV insertions, drawing labs, running crash carts, monitoring ART lines, or central line dressing changes. Are these clinical skills essential in our roles as nurses at the bedside? Absolutely. Do we need to know how to do these things to effectively care for our patients? Without a doubt. We are often asked if this is something we can add to the Iowa Online Nurse Residency Program (IONRP). While this is something we could do, we strongly believe the best way to review these clinical skills is inside the organization. Typically, many of these skills were taught in school but require repetitive, ongoing practice to gain mastery. It is also important these skills are reviewed in reference to the organization's specific policy, protocol, supplies, and equipment.
You may be wondering, if we are not covering these clinical skills, what type of skills do we cover? Oftentimes, the competencies in our program are referred to as ‘soft skills’ by organizations. Some say these skills are not necessary or they learned enough in nursing school. So, what exactly are soft skills? And are they necessary to be included in a nurse residency program?
Soft skills are considered a group of skills that help optimize an individual's performance (1). Soft skills such as communication, ethics, and conflict management are often minimally included in traditional education because they are hard to practice outside of a real clinical environment. Once in practice, nurses experience these skills with an interdisciplinary team and continue to figure out how to best apply the knowledge from school to real life (1). The use and enhancement of soft skills have been shown to improve patient satisfaction and quality of care (1) and decrease burnout for healthcare providers (2).
By utilizing the IONRP, nurse residents are provided content on a variety of soft skills, including effective communication, gaining trust, critical thinking, time management, managing conflict, delegation, cultural awareness, bias, ethical responsibilities, educating patients, and professionalism. These skills are then reviewed during live cohort discussions, where the concepts are brought to life and applied to various practice settings, with nurses sharing their experiences. While these skills may be difficult to check off a competency checklist, as the literature states, they are just as important to improve the care provided to our patients and ensure our nurses are taking care of themselves. Both of which are priorities in our healthcare environment today, no matter your specialty.
So, what about these hands-on skills? How are these incorporated into the residency program? That is the beauty of this online program. We provide the heavy lifting on these soft skills (which are all competencies required by accrediting organizations), so our organizations have the time and energy to focus on these site-specific competencies, ensuring the nurse residents are providing safe and effective care at the bedside. We work with our sites to meet their individual needs. Some meet monthly, others quarterly, but each has found a way to customize the IONRP content and incorporate their own facility needs to fully support their new graduates, helping them to become well-rounded nurses at the organization.
Jessica Grote, DNP, RN, NPD-BC
Program Coordinator, Iowa Online Nurse Residency Program
jessica-grote@uiowa.edu
References
- Sancho-Cantus, D., Cubero-Plazas, L., Botella Navas, M., Castellano-Rioja, E., & Canabate Ros, M. (2023). Importance of soft skills in health sciences students and their repercussion after the COVID-19 epidemic: Scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(6), 4901. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph20064901
- Seemaan, M.S., Bassil, J. P., A., & Salameh, P. (2021). Effect of soft skills and emotional intelligence of health-care professionals on burnout: A Lebanese cross-sectional study. International Journal of Health Professions, 8(1), 112-124. Doi: 10.2478/ijhp-2021-0011