Program Description and Evaluation

The Human Resources orientation is a requirement for all newly-hired staff. In addition, all nursing staff hired must attend Central Nursing Orientation (CNO), and both must be completed within the first 30 days of hire.

CNO serves as a foundation for all nursing staff to be oriented to nursing at Children’s National Hospital. Content provided in CNO is focused on exposure to organizational structure, nursing mission, vision and core values. Facilitators provide didactic content with competency validation for essential nursing practice and skills (e.g. medication calculation, POCT lab testing).

Unit-Based orientation is threaded throughout the 12 months and involves clinical and didactic sessions providing education specifically related to unit populations.

As part of the Unit-Based orientation, the nurse resident is assigned a preceptor(s). The preceptorship ranges from 12 weeks to six months in our acute and critical care unit. The Inpatient Psychiatry Unit offers a six- to eight-week preceptorship and our Operating Room offers a 12-month preceptorship.

During the preceptorship orientation, the nurse has one-on-one training at the bedside. The desired outcome is that they become an independently functioning, competent pediatric nurse in their specialty area, as evidenced by the successful completion of their competency checklist and having met incremental individualized biweekly goals.

Phase I focuses on program core competencies:

• Patient-centered care
• Ethics
• Communication
• Inter-professional collaboration
• Evidence-based practice
• Quality improvement
• Safety
• Critical thinking/clinical reasoning skills
• Informatics
• Role transition
• Stress management
• Time management

Phase II focuses on the:

• Development and presentation of the Evidence-Based Change Project; and includes
• Attending professional development education sessions and completing shadow experiences.

The Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) nurse residency track includes a curriculum designed to augment the learning experience for the nurse resident through professional development and to achieve the overall goals of the residency program. The NICU nurse residency curriculum includes four phases over the course of 12 months to meet the unique needs of caring for neonatal patients.

Each phase focuses on the following program core competencies, to varying degrees: 

• Patient-centered care
• Pathophysiology of the neonate
• Diagnosis and treatment of common neonatal disease processes
• Ethics
• Communication
• Inter-professional collaboration
• Evidence-based practice
• Quality improvement
• Safety
• Critical thinking/clinical reasoning skills
• Informatics
• Role transition
• Stress management
• Time management

Phase I focuses on the above core competencies.

Phase II focuses on the development and enhancement of the core competencies, in particular the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal disease processes requiring higher acuity.

Phase III focuses on the development and enhancement of the core competencies, in particular the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal disease processes requiring the highest acuity of care. In addition, nurse residents complete shadow experiences.

Phase IV focuses on continued professional development through an educational lecture series, and the development and presentation of the Evidence-Based Change Project.