Program Description and Evaluation

Nursing Residency Program
Program Description and Evaluation

The 12-month Pediatric Nurse Residency Program, also known as our Transition to Practice Program (TPP), is designed to provide the nurse resident with an opportunity to transition into the role of a professional nurse under the guidance and support of our clinical nursing staff, nurse educators and program facilitators.

The program includes a Human Resources orientation, a Unit-Based orientation, and acute and critical care tracks.

The acute and critical care tracks include curricula designed to augment the learning experience for the nurse resident through professional development and to achieve the overall goals of the program. The acute care track includes nurse residents from inpatient acute care, radiology, psychiatry and peri-operative services. The critical care track includes nurse residents from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department (at Sheikh Zayed Campus and United Medical Center).

Learn more about orientations and phases of the tracks below.

Orientations

What are the required Human Resources orientations?

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).

What does the Unit-Based orientation consist of?

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.

Acute and Critical Care Tracks

What are the phases of the acute and critical care tracks?

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.

What are the phases of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) residency track?

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.