Purpose/Objectives:
This poster will report on the development of documentation tools for clinical nurse specialists (CNSs), based on Synergy for Clinical Excellence: the AACN Synergy Model for Patient Care by Sonya R. Hardin and Roberta Kaplow.
Significance:
Clinical nurse specialists need a distinct system of documenting CNS care to demonstrate the value of CNS involvement.
Background/Rationale:
Clinical nurse specialist students may encounter difficulties in adapting the Synergy Model to clinical practice. Traditional nursing care plans may have limited application to advanced practice nurses. Although the AACNS Synergy Model for Patient Care combines the concepts and roles necessary for CNS practice, there has been little documentation of the usefulness of the Synergy Model in defining and predicting outcomes.
Description:
A table was created that combined the patient characteristics, nurse competencies, and expected outcomes for a patient. For this article, a patient with disseminated intravascular coagulation was chosen. The progression of patient care and outcomes are documented in the CNS progress report.
Outcome:
This poster articulates the CNSs' unique influence on optimal outcomes. The documentation tool described may be used to collect data to demonstrate the critical links between CNS competencies and patient outcomes.
Interpretation/Conclusion:
Documentation tools that incorporate the Synergy Model provide a mechanism of defining the value of the CNS role within the health care agency, serve as an excellent learning opportunity for the CNS student, and offer concrete data used to develop the predictive ability of the Synergy Model.
Implications for Education:
The Synergy Model Care Plan documentation tools should be published for use by CNS students, practicing CNSs, and researchers into CNS-related outcomes.
Section Description
The journal is proud to share the student abstracts accepted for poster presentation at the 2010 National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists Conference. These abstracts are submitted under a separate, later deadline and therefore did not appear in the journal with the general abstracts. Congratulations to these CNS students and their faculty mentors.