How to Create a Nursing Professional Development Program

Nursing is a highly specialized profession, constantly evolving to meet the needs of residents, clients, and patients. Developing a nursing professional development program — an educational system intended to support nursing practice and role advancement — can empower your nursing staff to continue learning and growing as the healthcare landscape changes.

How can an organization encourage employee career development while also prioritizing patient wellness and business growth? In this article, we review the basics of professional development programs and outline a few ways to implement a robust and effective staff education plan at your facility.

Nursing Professional Development Basics: FAQ

To help you get started, we’ve answered some of the most commonly asked questions about career development programs for nursing professionals.

Why should facilities promote professional development?

Whether your facility employs a few nursing staff or a large multidisciplinary team, encouraging career development is essential to providing high-quality care. Nursing professional development programs have been shown to improve clinical practice by:

• Improving patient outcomes.
• Creating a highly skilled multidisciplinary team.
• Increasing nursing retention rates.
• Enhancing an organization’s financial performance.

Your facility’s nursing professional development program will be unique based on its size, needs, and resources. One common element among top continuing education programs is paid educational time and affordable study resources.

Who leads these programs?

Creating professional development opportunities for nurses is a hefty responsibility. Most organizations use internal resources to support new hires and day-to-day training needs, while others outsource to a trusted third-party provider.

Before initiating your staff education program, your organization will need to choose a nurse educator to organize and manage the program. Hiring a nursing professional development specialist or a director of education can help you manage your staff development program and facilitate staff learning.

If there’s a nursing educator on staff that you’d like to promote but needs more training or support, courses are available to help them prepare for the role. Your educator may also complete the nursing professional development certification provided by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).

Why do clinicians appreciate career advancement?

When choosing where to work, many employees accept jobs at organizations that offer ample opportunities for nursing professional development. Examples of these benefits include tuition assistance, free healthcare conference attendance, and paid educational time off.

Strong nursing professionals appreciate professional development benefits because it helps them meet their career goals and aspirations, such as:

• Getting certified in their nursing specialty.
• Earning an advanced nursing degree.
• Becoming a new-graduate preceptor.

Employees who look to develop their nursing practice demonstrate motivation and drive. Thus, offering access to your facility’s professional development program may give them the extra encouragement they need to join your team.

How can you measure a program’s success?

It’s important to establish your own nursing professional development goals to ensure your program is valuable and cost effective. When looking to measure your program’s success, it’s important to consider the following core competencies:

• Adult learning theories and principles
• Curriculum and implementation
• Nursing practice
• Research and evidence
• Communication, collaboration, and partnership
• Ethical/legal principles and professionalism
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Management, leadership, and advocacy

Ways to Implement Nursing Staff Development

Now that you understand the basics of professional development and know the skills required to manage an educational program, it’s time to learn how to implement a meaningful clinical education program for your nursing staff. Here are three strategies to get your team started.

1. Build Facility-Specific Training Programs

Nurses access facility-specific training during the onboarding process, throughout their clinical orientation, and during the mentorship and preceptorship of newly hired nurses. It’s important that your organization takes the necessary time and effort to build their own robust education program to support your clinical staff.

Throughout the calendar year, in-service training can be used to reinforce essential education and provide teaching on new policies, technology, and skills. While nursing professionals are ultimately responsible for the quality of care they give to their patients, healthcare leaders must ensure that their clinical team remains competent to provide safe and appropriate treatment.

Most facilities offer training upon hire and review competencies on an annual basis. Nurses must demonstrate competency in skills essential to their role and complete education to stay compliant with government regulations.

Professional development programs often include remedial training and monitoring in the event that a nurse makes an error because of a knowledge or skill deficit. It’s important to note that this training aims to improve the nurse’s ability to provide safe and proficient care, not to punish or reprimand staff who may have made a mistake.

2. Continuing Education

Nurses complete continuing education (CE) training to improve their knowledge, meet state license renewal mandates, and fulfill their requirements for specialty certification. Each state has its own specific nursing CE requirements. To earn CE hours or credits, nurses must complete the education provided by an accredited CE provider approved by the state.

Your organization can apply to become an accredited CE provider and create courses that meet the state requirements. Your facility benefits from developing and tailoring the classes to your patients’ needs while still allowing your leadership team direct control over the quality and integrity of coursework. It also allows you to offer free CE courses to your employees, increasing the likelihood that they’ll participate in your learning activity.

One drawback to being your own CE provider is the costly and time-consuming application process. You’ll need a team of nurse educators and instructional designers to create the content and learning management system required to deploy your courses and maintain accurate records.

You can apply to become a CE provider through some state boards of nursing (such as in California), state nurses associations, or through a nursing accreditation organization like the ANCC.

3. Career Ladders

A nursing career ladder is a staff development program that encourages nursing professionals to advance their role and long-term growth. Career ladders have been shown to benefit employers and employees alike by improving job satisfaction and increasing staff retention. Nurses are able to develop a new skill set and your healthcare organization benefits from happy and invested employees, strengthening the bond between your clinicians and leadership team.

Example: A nursing facility may encourage its CNAs to become LPNs or RNs by providing tuition assistance during their employment. The CNA would continue to work at the facility throughout their time in the education program. After earning their degree and obtaining their new nursing license, they would then work as an RN for that same facility.

Don’t Miss Out On More Nursing Education Opportunities

IntelyCare is dedicated to high-quality nursing practice. Our education department is dedicated to advancing the nursing professional development of clinicians nationwide. Want to learn more? Get the latest nursing education and facility news delivered straight to your inbox.