Nursing professional development in ambulatory care: what is it?

Abstract

Nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners play an important role in ensuring the quality and safety of nursing care and in guiding nurses through practice transitions. In recent years, an increasing number of NPD practitioners have been employed in ambulatory care settings, yet little is known about how the ambulatory practice setting affects or is affected by NPD practice. The aim of this descriptive phenomenology was to describe how the NPD role is experienced in the ambulatory care setting. Nine NPD practitioners working in ambulatory care were interviewed. Data were analyzed using Priest's method for descriptive phenomenology. Three themes emerged: Features of the ambulatory care setting that affect NPD practice; same, but different; and these are my people. The findings provide a rich description of NPD practice in ambulatory care, with implications for NPD practitioners in ambulatory care and the organizations that employ them. Results from this project will be used to design future research on optimizing NPD practice to improve nursing care in ambulatory settings