Designing a standardised emergency nurse career pathway for use across rural, regional and metropolitan New South Wales, Australia: A consensus process

Abstract

Background: Emergency nurses are the first clinicians to see patients in the ED; their practice is fundamental to patient safety. To reduce clinical variation and increase the safety and quality of emergency nursing care, we developed a standardised consensus-based emergency nurse career pathway for use across Australian rural, regional, and metropolitan New South Wales (NSW) emergency departments. Methods: An analysis of career pathways from six health services, the College for Emergency Nursing Australasia, and NSW Ministry of Health was conducted. Using a consensus process, a 15-member expert panel developed the pathway and determined the education needs for pathway progression over six face-to-face meetings from May to August 2023. Results: An eight-step pathway outlining nurse progression through models of care related to different ED clinical areas with a minimum 172 h protected face-to-face and 8 h online education is required to progress from novice to expert. Progression corresponds with increasing levels of complexity, decision making and clinical skills, aligned with Benner's novice to expert theory. Conclusion: A standardised career pathway with minimum 180 h would enable a consistent approach to emergency nursing training and enable nurses to work to their full scope of practice. This will facilitate transferability of emergency nursing skills across jurisdictions.