Educational intensive for primary healthcare teams

More than a year ago, we launched our pilot project, “Advanced Nurse Practitioner,” with which we improved nurses’ clinical and communication skills, increased their career prospects, and drew attention to nurses as individual healthcare providers.

During this year, nurses from different parts of Ukraine gained new knowledge and clinical and soft skills by participating in courses, training, and workshops. But one of the main results for us is that the nurses believed in themselves and their capabilities, and this change was noticed and supported by both heads of institutions and doctors and patients.

The final event for the “Advanced Nurse Practitioner” pilot project was an educational intensive for primary healthcare teams held last week in Lviv. In addition to working on clinical and communication skills, the participants worked on building trust in the team and shared their experiences and successes gained during the pilot project implementation.

The main challenges in the implementation of expanded roles for nurses were the reluctance of doctors to delegate their duties to them, the refusal to have their nursing secretaries, the difficulty of introducing a separate nursing reception due to the limited space of the institution, bureaucratic obstacles, as well as the distrust of patients.

However, simultaneously, the pilot facilities shared considerable successes – nurses overcame their fears, believed in their strengths, and became more confident in counseling patients, speaking at conferences, and sharing experiences with colleagues. Therefore, doctors began to trust their nurses more because they saw how they constantly learned and improved their competencies.

In addition, some pilot institutions have already introduced a separate reception of a nurse and successfully receive patients with their electronic keys in the medical information system.

And although our educational intensive for primary healthcare teams took place in difficult conditions because there was no electricity in Lviv the day before – difficult situations did not stop our participants and organizers. We all understand that the future of our country depends on how we work and develop. We thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the opportunity to implement the planned activities.

Even though our educational intensive was the final one for the project, the pilot institutions nor we plan to rest on our laurels. Still, we will continue to develop the potential of nurses!

Photos were taken by Taras Bezpaly