Nursing is a rewarding and highly trusted profession, but it’s also a profession with many demands and challenges. Understanding the guiding professional theories established by previous nurses will help nursing students build the necessary foundations to succeed in challenging healthcare environments.
This course focuses on the foundations of nursing practice. Students will learn about safe and effective patient care, ethics and legalities in nursing, and how to educate patients. Students will use nursing theory to organize knowledge-based concepts so they can overcome the obstacles nurses may face while delivering patient care or managing a team.
Learning objectives
After the completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Define the core principles of nursing practice, including the nursing process components (assessment, diagnosis, planning, interventions, and evaluation) and their application in patient care settings.
- Explain the legal and ethical frameworks governing nursing practice, including patient rights, informed consent, confidentiality, and professional accountability standards.
- Recall therapeutic communication techniques during patient interactions, including active listening, empathy, and culturally sensitive communication strategies.
- State evidence-based nutrition principles and health promotion strategies to develop individualized care plans that address patients’ wellness needs across the lifespan.
- Review safe and effective patient care practices, including infection control measures, medication administration protocols, and fall prevention strategies.
- Review standard blood tests used to diagnose common health conditions across the lifespan and implications of abnormal values on patient health status and nursing care planning.
- Describe the use of assessment findings, education principles, and documentation standards in the delivery of care that promotes optimal patient outcomes.
- Define the relationship between the organization of nursing shift activities, safety standards, and time management in the prioritization of care.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of nursing interventions and patient education strategies by analyzing patient responses, outcomes, and the need for care plan modifications.
Course outline
- How to Study Nursing
- Foundations of Nursing Practice I
- Foundations of Nursing Practice and Nursing Healthcare Systems
- Management of Care (Nursing)
- Ethics and Legalities in Nursing Practice
- Health and Wellness and Complementary Alternative Medicine (Nursing)
- Nutrition, Health Promotion and Maintenance (Nursing)
- Therapeutic Communication (Nursing)
- Foundations of Nursing Practice II
- Caring in Nursing Practice
- Nursing across the Lifespan
- Safe and Effective Patient Care (Nursing)
- Patient Education, Documentation, and Informatics (Nursing)
- Nursing Process – Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Interventions, and Evaluation
- How to Organize a Nursing Shift
- Nursing Assessment: Theory
- Nursing Assessment: Demonstration
- Lab Value Interpretation I
- Dosage and Calculation
