Mission
The mission of Nursing and Health Sciences is to facilitate an interprofessional learning environment in which students become safe, accountable, and culturally responsive healthcare professionals. Faculty and students embrace excellence and model ethical leadership, while advancing the art and science in healthcare. Faculty and students adopt an attitude of inquiry. Ideas are generated, assumptions are questioned, and the art of investigation is prized.
Vision
Nursing and Health Sciences will be an influential resource in health education and promotion for the residents of the Salinas Valley.
Values
Nursing and Health Sciences facilitates the development of healthcare professionals who embody and demonstrate core values of comportment, competence, caring, collaboration, and curiosity:
Comportment involves the internalization of the core values of professional practice (NLN, core values). Comportment is actualized by the integration of “values and actions and may be measured in the form of professional conduct, appearance, behavior, and collaborative practice” (Clickner & Shirey, 2013, p. 108).
Competence is an integration of knowledge, skills, abilities, and judgments demonstrating an expected level of performance within a scope of practice. The competent healthcare professional facilitates competent practice and seeks to remove barriers that constrain competent practice. Competence is definable, measurable, and can be evaluated; the professional is responsible and accountable for maintaining competence; competence is situational and dynamic (ANA, 2014; NLN, 2014).
Caring, as explained by Kalfoss and Owe (2015) and defined in Swanson’s Caring Theory (1991), has five caring processes that are common in caring relationships. These five processes are categorized as
- “Knowing” represents understanding the client's experience and striving to understand an event as it has meaning in the life of the other.
- “Being with” includes being available and emotionally present to the other.
- “Doing for” entails competently doing for the other what he or she would do for self, if possible. Caregivers develop a healing environment, preserve dignity, and help the client navigate the healthcare system.
- “Enabling/Informing” is facilitating the other’s passage through life transitions and unfamiliar events. Caregivers share knowledge to benefit others.
- “Maintaining belief” revolves around believing in the client’s ability to make the best decisions. Caregivers demonstrate a sustaining faith in the other’s capacity to get through an event or transition and face a future with meaning.
Collaboration is the collective effort to attain a shared goal: addressing health needs of individuals and groups and includes initiatives with communities of interest to decrease the impact of the social determinants of health (Schroeder, Malone, McCabe & Lipman, 2018). Collaboration requires mutual trust, recognition, and respect among the interprofessional healthcare team, shared decision-making about client care, and open dialogue among all parties who have an interest in and a concern for healthcare outcomes (ANA, 2015 & NLN, 2014). Communication requires mutual trust, recognition, and respect among the interprofessional healthcare team, shared decision-making about client care, and open dialogue among all parties who have an interest in and a concern for healthcare outcomes (American Nurses Association, 2015; NLN, 2014).
Curiosity is necessary to pursue life-long learning. According to Benner et al. (2010), essential skills such as clinical reasoning, the skills of advocacy and inquiry, along with research must be facilitated by professionals who have a good understanding of the nursing profession. Curiosity is the tool of discovery for evidence-based practice.
Philosophy
The Nursing and Health Sciences philosophy statement is in alignment with the Hartnell
College mission, vision, and core values. The Nursing and Health Sciences philosophy
is a compilation of beliefs and values held by the faculty about health promotion,
persons, environment, nursing, respiratory care, emergency medical services, healthcare,
education, and learning. Guided by the core values of Comportment, Competence, Caring,
Collaboration, and Curiosity, faculty ascribes to a dynamic learning environment that
incorporates new ideas and technology and is guided by the foundational elements of
safety, quality, and personal accountability.
Nursing and Health Sciences faculty and staff strive for an inclusive academic environment
where students, faculty, and staff flourish. Faculty is responsive to the unique needs
of each learner. Celebrating strengths and past experiences of students and faculty
alike fortifies and enhances the learning environment. Faculty encourages student
engagement by using adult education theories and experiential instructional methods,
including clinical scenarios, high and low fidelity simulation, application of theory
to clinical practice, interprofessional learning activities, and reflective journaling.
Faculty believes that modeling professional behaviors and promoting personal growth
transforms students into graduates who are prepared for entry-level positions within
their scope of practice and are ready to engage in leadership and lifelong learning.
Values guide curriculum development and the way in which faculty interact with students.
Learning is the process by which behavior is changed as the individual acquires, retains,
and applies knowledge, attitudes, skills, or modes of thought (Billings & Halstead,
2020). The ultimate responsibility for learning rests with the learner. Learning is
active and students construct meaning from experience. Nursing and Health Sciences
learners are adults who are self- directed, pragmatic problem solvers; they propose
solutions to real problems.
Teaching is the facilitation of learning and requires mentors who value the learner as a person and understand the individual’s learning needs (Billings & Halstead, 2020). Nursing and Health Sciences faculty creates learning environments that support engagement; learners are empowered by a combination of cognitive, constructivist, adult-learning, and authentic learning approaches.
Ethically, each healthcare professional builds the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills required to demonstrate competence in practice. Students adhere to ethical and professional standards that define safe and effective practice; competence alone is not enough to provide optimal care. They learn to adapt care to meet the individual’s needs, values, and preferences because the "person" is a biopsychosocial system, seeking meaning and purpose while interacting with the environment. Students integrate innovative, evidence-based practice into clinical practice and use information and technology to manage data necessary for decision-making. Quality improvement measures mitigate errors and improve safety.
American Nurses Association (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.
Retrieved from ANA code of ethics
Benner, P., Sutphen, M., Leonard, V., & Day L. (2010). Educating nurses: A call for
radical transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Billings, D. M., & Halstead, J. A. (2020). Teaching in nursing: A guide for faculty
(6th ed). Saint Louis, MO: Elsevier.
Clickner, D. A., & Shirey, M. R. (2013). Professional comportment: The missing element
in nursing practice. Nursing Forum, 48(2), 106-113. doi:10.1111/nuf.12014
Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel. (2016). Core competencies
for interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. Washington,
D.C.: Interprofessional Education Collaborative. Retrieved from IPEC 2016 update
National League for Nursing (2020). Core values. Retrieved from NLN core values
National League for Nursing (2012). Outcomes and competencies for graduates of practical/vocational,
diploma, associate degree, baccalaureate, masters, practice doctorate, and research
doctorate programs in nursing. New York: National League for Nursing. Retrieved from
Outcomes and Competencies
National League for Nursing (2014). NLN practical/vocational curriculum framework:
Guiding principles. Retrieved from http://www.nln.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/nln-practical-nursing-framework-guidelinesfinal.pdf?sfvrsn=0
Kalfoss, M. and Owe, J. (2015). Empirical verification of Swanson’s Caring Processes
found in nursing actions: Systematic Review. Open Journal of Nursing, 5, 976-986.
doi: 10.4236/ojn.2015.511104.
Schroeder, K., Malone, S. K., McCabe, E., & Lipman, T. (2018). Addressing the social
determinants of health: A call to action for school nurses. The Journal of School
Nursing, 34(3), 182–191. doi: 10.1177/1059840517750733
Inter-professional Core Competencies
Interprofessional core competencies include four domains, essential values for healthcare
professionals:
- Values/ethics for interprofessional practice: Work with individuals of other professions to maintain a climate of mutual respect
and shared values (IPEC, 2016)
- Roles/responsibilities: Use the knowledge of one’s own role and those of other professions to appropriately assess and address the healthcare needs of the clients and populations served. Of patients and to promote and advance the health of populations (IPEC, 2016).
- Interprofessional communication: Communicate with clients, families, communities, and other health professionals in a responsive and responsible manner that supports a team approach to the maintenance of health and the treatment of disease. (IPEC, 2016)
- Teams and teamwork: Apply relationship-building values and the principles of team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles to plan and deliver client/population centered care that is safe, timely, efficient, effective, and equitable (IPEC, 2016; Schroeder, Malone, McCabe, & Lipman, 2018).