Hi,
I am now looking for information regarding frequency of competency re-verifications that are done at various hospitals. We requre competencies for PIV insertion, port access, CVC blood draws, Blood cultures, and CVC dressing change with initial employment. However, we are working on establishing a time fram for re-varification of these skills to ensure staff are still current with best practice. Are any of the other hospitals doing this? If so, what is the frequency. Within our department we do them every 3 years. With the new budget issues that I am sure we are all facing, we are trying to deterime what would be appropriate when these tasks are done outside of the IV therapy department. 2 of our hospitals do not have IV teams and follow a de-centralized model for IV/CVC related tasks. Only one of our hospitals does have an IV team and it is easy to ensure that they are maintaining their skills. I would love any insight on this!
Thank you!
Rebecca Wahlstrom
Adult Vascular Access Coordinator
Tacoma General Hospital
Tacoma, WA
First, I would refer you to the INS Standards of Practice #6 Competence and Competency Validation. Practice Criteria B will provide some answers for you. The bottom line is that there are no rigid time lines for the frequency of assessing ongoing competencies. That is a decision that each organization must make. The goal of competency validation is to ensure that all staff can and does perform correctly. This means that there should not be a rigid list of tasks and on a periodic basis you schedule all nursing staff to come to a classroom and demonstrate how to do these tasks on anatomical models. This is not the best way to achieve measurement of competency. See Practice Criteria F describing this as a dynamic process that changes based on the needs of each organization. This means your list of specific actions or tasks will vary and it should be linked to your clinical outcomes documented through your quality/performance improvement process. If your outcome data is showing a problem for a particular unit or area, then you may need more frequent assessment for the actions required to improve performance. So what is being done at one facility is not necessarily what you should be doing at your facility. Patient populations and staff skill levels differ greatly. You can and should have a set lists to validate during orientation. But after that, the frequency is based on changes in scope of practice, introduction of new technology, etc. I know this may sound confusing, but a competency validation program is not a fixed list of tasks with each nurse demonstrating that they can do that task at XX number of months or years. It must be a dynamic process tied to outcome monitoring. Lynn
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
126 Main Street, PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861