Professional Trajectory, Increasing Educational Level, and Advancements and Competency

Reflection Paper
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Reflection Paper
Healthcare is a highly dynamic industry that demands swift adaptations from the stakeholders. Stakeholders in healthcare, such as nurses, are consistently needed to have the knowledge and skills to combat the increasing demand for healthcare services with the necessary efficiency. In their publication titled “Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health,” IOM noted the need for nurses to advance their knowledge and skills through education. The IOM report gives a platform for every nurse to understand the industry changes and accompany the changes with insightful advancements in education to counter future professional challenges. This paper explores a reflection of the report. It employs the content to assess my professional trajectory, the value of the increasing educational level, and the relationship between advancements in nursing education and competency.
Main Issues in the Report
The IOM report tends to address four main issues concerning the need for advanced education in the profession. Primary among the issues addressed is the need for nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and training (IOM et al., 2016). Nurses undergo different levels of training to gain specific sets of skills. As an individual pursues a higher level of education, they stand a chance of understanding the clinical setting better and delivering better outcomes. The report also insists that nurses should receive a higher level of education and training through an education system that promotes a seamless progression in academics. Presently, nursing has enhanced efficiency in acquiring knowledge in the profession. Learners and professionals are accorded a clear path of progression throughout their professional lives. The other prospects addressed in the report include the need for effective workforce planning and policymaking requiring data collection and information infrastructure and the need for all healthcare professionals to be full partners in their respective operational settings.
Professional Ambitions
My professional ambition is to become a nursing informatics specialist. Healthcare is fast becoming dependent on technological advancements. More healthcare facilities depend on the emerging technological tools to diagnose, treat, or monitor their patients. Additionally, healthcare facilities require the acquisition, storage, and management of information, something that requires the inputs of a nursing informatics specialist. In the IOM report, one of the motivations is to ensure that nurses and other healthcare professionals are advanced enough to acquire and manage healthcare information and technological systems. Such a declaration makes it easy to believe that nursing informatics specialists will soon be among the most sought-after nursing specialists in the world.
There are multiple reasons why I would like to advance my career through a nursing informatics specialization. Principally, it is important to advance knowledge in nursing. Nurses understand that the industry is changing, and there is an increasing need for healthcare services (Hart, 2021). As a professional, advancing my skills is an avenue of ...