International Council of Nurses (ICN) 2011 Conference

Malta

May 2-8, 2011

 

 

The Maltese archipelago lies virtually at the centre of the Mediterranean, with Malta 93km south of Sicily and 288km north of Africa. The archipelago consists of three islands: Malta, Gozo and Comino with a total population of 400,000 people. In the early centuries, the capital of Malta, Valletta, became a fortified city with huge palaces and churches. It later developed as a flourishing centre for trade with many fortresses, aqueducts, and harbours.

 

The ICN Conference in May 2011 provided opportunities to disseminate nursing knowledge across cultures and countries. The objectives of the Conference were to advance and improve the quality of health services, demonstrate the nursing contribution to the health of individuals, families and communities, and provide opportunities for the exchange of experience and expertise across the international nursing community. Concurrent sessions, symposia and posters addressed developments in nursing education, pandemics, patient care, technology, regulation, and the history of nursing.

 

Pammla Petrucka and Sandra Bassendowski had three abstracts accepted for this conference and presented the following two papers: Transitioning from Paper to Technology to Support Nursing Practice in a Small Rural Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada and Internationally Educated Nurses: Exploring the Past to Anticipate the Future.

 

 

 

 

 

The session on Transitioning from Paper to Technology to Support Nursing Practice in a Small Rural Hospital addressed the theme of innovation in health care and described a partnership with MITACS Accelerate, All Nations’ Healing Hospital, Saskatchewan, Canada and College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan that focused on integration of technology in a practice environment. In 2009, All Nations’ Healing Hospital identified a need to introduce electronic nursing resources through the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops to assist the nursing staff in accessing timely and up to date policies and procedures and to use best practice resources to support quality patient care and improve work life satisfaction for nurses. The move away from paper work life satisfaction for nurses. The move away from paper based resources to online access to current information addresses Accreditation Canada’s recommendations related to patient safety. The presenters addressed the process, project goals, research results, and project outcomes. The research assessed the impact of appropriation of technology by nurses in a Saskatchewan setting and the presenters discussed the specific research questions of the project. The session addressed the health related technology protocols and educative requirements needed to initiate, maintain, and sustain a laptop/PDA to wireless network within a select health care environment in Saskatchewan. This project demonstrates an innovative model for integration of technology that transects areas of practice, professional development, administration, policy, and research.

 

The second session on Internationally Educated Nurses focused on the international recruitment efforts that have become an integral health human resource strategy in many parts of Canada. In Saskatchewan, this effort has focused to date primarily on the Philippines, a country that has indicated traditionally that it educates more nursing personnel than it needs domestically, has English as a language of instruction (at select institutions), and historically has produced well-qualified health human resources personnel. International recruitment in health care will likely remain a mid to long term strategy to address health human resource needs in Saskatchewan and, more broadly, across Canada. It is critical to understand the historical perspective related to the recruitment and retention strategy in its entirety (i.e., from policy to implementation to evaluation) across all partners (i.e. IEN to unit to region to education and government sectors, as well as Philippines’ perspective). Through a comprehensive research and evaluation approach that focused on the history of recruitment in Saskatchewan over the past several decades, the research project contributed to the knowledge of factors related to successful and sustainable recruitment and retention of Filipino IENs specifically and other IENs generally. Further, the study identified key elements/strategies for the integration of IENs into the Saskatchewan health care context and into local communities.

 

In summary, the Conference was an amazing experience with an opportunity to listen to a variety of sessions and to talk to nurses from all over the world. There was also time to walk through the streets of Valetta and learn about the incredible history of this small country.