Building New Connections: Quality Orientation With Your CWOCN

Initiation of new staff nurses can be effectively done using the master-apprentice method (Bisholt, 2011).  Adult learners, known to exhibit a desire to learn based on task needs appreciate being shown by experts, so they too can become safe experienced practitioners (Ross-Gordon, 2011). In our effort to maintain superior  patient care, one method of ensuring new nurses are performing their wound, ostomy, and continence patient care with confidence is to have each new staff spend time with the CWOCN during orientation (Clark, Springer, 2012).  This five hospital system prepares new staff with a minimum of 4 hours of rounding with CWOCN. The new nurse is shown how to access the WOC webpage on our intranet where they can print our WOC orientation checklist. The staff is provided with specific competencies including: identification of wound type, measurement of wound, pressure ulcer training, negative pressure education, and pressure ulcer risk assessment competencies. Computer documentation is another important part of this training, and with a CWOCN guiding the new staff, we can expect the documentation to be done correctly. This is especially important in documentation of pressure ulcers present on admission (POA) so the hospitals are not charged with causing pressure ulcers that were POA.   Teaching our new nurses during their orientation ensuring every the new nurse gains new knowledge, and understands the quality of care that is expected for our patients. During the first months of this process we asked each nurse to send an email with a brief description of their experience after the orientation with the CWOCN. We have received positive feedback from our nurse residents and from experienced nurses who are new to our hospital system.