Lifelong learning or continuous professional development is important in nursing practice. It equips nurses with the practical and critical-thinking skills required to make decisions that help achieve better health outcomes. Critical thinking skills are essential in nursing to help make critical decisions and solve ethical dilemmas related to caring of a patient (Ludin, 2018). Lifelong learning is also essential to help nurses develop skills that foster collaborative relationships with healthcare teams in the management of a patient’s care continuum. As the world population are fast-growing diverse, new health challenges emerge that may deem past skills obsolete. Accordingly, professional development can help nurses acquire new and advanced skills that help them cope with the challenges of a diverse population. Lifelong learning provides nurses with the knowledge, training, and skills to better understand the experiences of individual patients within diverse population settings, patients’ cultural aspects, and how they affect their response to health care provided.
Nurses can act as agents of change within the evolving healthcare systems to better population outcomes (Rafferty, 2018). Nurses are directly and actively involved in patient care more than other healthcare providers. Therefore, they are and can be key contributors to providing information and education to health care workers and populations. Their direct communication with patients makes it easy for them to facilitate substantial changes to adapt to the evolving health care systems. In addition, nurses also act as coordinators between patients, physicians, and other health care service providers such as health insurers. They can act as the link between these parties to communicate changes on either side. They can also utilize their connection with service providers and patients to identify health needs, training needs, workforce needs, reduce medical errors, and help improve the quality of care, reducing health care workforce shortages. Through these roles, nurses efficiently contribute to the effective management of patient care within an evolving health care system.
Ludin, S. M. (2018). Does good critical thinking equal effective decision-making among critical care nurses? A cross-sectional survey. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 44, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ICCN.2017.06.002
Rafferty, A. M. (2018). Nurses as change agents for a better future in health care: the politics of drift and dilution. Health Economics, Policy, and Law, 13(3–4), 475–491. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744133117000482
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