Nursing clinical ladder in its second year
In its second year, King's Daughters Nursing Clinical Ladder is underway. Our nurses are already making strides in advancing not only their own professional development but also helping King's Daughters make advancements. In a new collaboration, 11 of our nurses are partnering with students from Kentucky Christian University in Grayson. The students are pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students in a research course, and were presented with a wide array of research opportunities from which to choose. Based on their own interests, they selected one of these 11 topics.
King's Daughters lactation counselor Ashley Brown is conducting a study on the efficacy of Kangaroo Care with caesarean mothers in the delivery room. Kangaroo Care is a method of holding a baby that involves skin-to-skin contact. The baby, wearing nothing but a diaper and a piece of cloth covering his or her back, is placed directly on the mother's bare chest following birth.
It is well established that this is an effective way of reducing newborn hypothermia, newborn hypoglycemia and increasing the likelihood of early latching for breastfeeding in mothers who deliver without caesarean section.
By working together, nurses at King’s Daughters and student nurses from Kentucky Christian University make the care we provide based on the most up-to-date research, and the best it possibly can be.
About King's Daughters Clinical Ladder
Nurses are encouraged to develop professionally and participate in process improvement through King’s Daughters Clinical Ladder program. Each year, hundreds of nurses in the organization will decide to go the extra mile, taking time beyond their day-to-day patient care duties to take a broader view of their areas, hospital and processes.
The purpose of the Clinical Ladder program at King’s Daughters includes:
- Recognize nursing as an intellectual process
- Identify and develop leaders in the clinical staff
- Recognize experience and expertise at the bedside
- Promote excellence in patient care
- Encourage involvement in hospital improvement processes
- Provide career mobility and compensation to nurses who distinguish themselves through expert practice and professional development
- Increase sense of ownership in unit and hospital
- Increase personal job satisfaction
As part of their participation in the Clinical Ladder, nurses perform safety and quality audits; review evidence-based research; participate in shared governance councils and committees; speak to middle school, high school, and college students about health and careers in nursing; advocate for evidence-based practice change; achieve national certification; identify education needs, develop education materials, and provide in-services hospital-wide.
For their efforts and demonstration of clinical excellence, nurses are awarded the status of CLIN-I, CLIN-II or CLIN-III, representing the competent nurse, the proficient nurse, and the expert nurse. Each status receives a financial incentive, and is renewed each year through continued participation.
Through the Clinical Ladder, nurses not only identify areas for improvement, but seek out solutions to the most difficult problems in healthcare. They strive to better themselves, and in doing so, better the professional environment for nursing, and the quality of care provided at King’s Daughters.
