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The new wave of competency assessment

Nurse Leader Weekly, February 22, 2008

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Making sure nurses are competent in their skill sets is one of the most important responsibilities of a director of nursing. But as the need for validation goes beyond technical skills and focuses on professional development as a whole, the traditional methods of assessing competencies need to be examined in a new light.

"It has always been important to validate competencies, but how some institutions are choosing to look at it is taking a different spin," says Sheila St. Cyr, MS, RN-BC, OCN, performance-based development system coordinator at the University of Oklahoma (OU) Medical Center in Oklahoma City. "Now we're not just looking at technical skills, we're validating interpersonal skills as well. It used to be more about the technical skills checklist. And that's just not how it should be."

With the recent shift in focus, directors of nursing must arm themselves with the necessary tools and information to think beyond simply validating skill sets.

Walk before you run

When you begin working with staff members to validate competencies, St. Cyr says one of the best strategies toward education is to play the what-if game. "Use a questioning technique with staff members," she says. Give your nurses a scenario, then ask the following questions:

• What complications can happen?
• What are the signs or symptoms?
• Would you need to call the doctor?
• What assessments would you need to make?
• How would you know if the resident was getting better?

This way, you'll have confidence that if the nurses were being faced with a real problem, they would be able to handle it properly, says St. Cyr.

"It's better than a yes or no question," she says. "That doesn't really tell you if they know." Such questioning can also boost confidence in unsure nurses.

Editor's Note: This excerpt was adapted from the article "Raising the bar for your nursing staff members: Competency validation and performance evaluation are merging," featured in the Reading Room on HCPro's new online resource center, www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com!  

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