Author: Egidia Rugwizangoga
School: University of Maryland, School of Nursing
Area of Study: Health Services Leadership and Management
My name is Egidia Rugwizangoga and I have been a Clinical Registered Nurse for nine years. My nursing practice aims at providing excellent care to patients and their families, creating a healthy and safest environment, and strengthening and embracing our diverse communities. Throughout my nursing career, I have worked as a staff nurse and a Nurse In Charge on a medical/surgical unit at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a mentor to new nurses and nursing students, a nursing clinical instructor and a global nurse volunteer through Team Heart, a Boston-Rwanda based non-profit organization that performs open heart surgeries in Rwanda. I am currently enrolled in a Master’s Degree Program with a concentration in Health Services Leadership and Management at the University of Maryland, School of Nursing. I believe that obtaining ACLS/PALS training is imperative as the skills that are acquired are essential in saving lives in emergency situations.
What inspired you to embark on a career within your chosen healthcare field?
My call to nursing as my chosen healthcare profession emerged when I was fourteen years old in a small country called Rwanda about the size of Maryland located in Easter Africa. It was in 1994 and the war that has ravaged the country was coming to the end. There were many people dispersed throughout the country in refugee camps and I was one of them. The close proximity, lack of water and sanitation and other poor living conditions caused diseases that were mostly contagious in nature. I was fortunate to remain healthy and as a result, I started taking care of sick people. Despite my young age, comforting and caring for those who were ill did not feel overwhelming but natural to me. From this experience, I knew without a doubt that my life purpose was to become a nurse to serve and advocate for those who are sick and vulnerable. After finishing high school, I enrolled in a nursing program at the University of Massachusetts where I earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
During my experience as a nurse and a frontline healthcare provider, I have acquired many clinical and leadership skills. As I grew in my nursing professional practice, I started taking responsibilities as a charge nurse on my unit and mentoring other nurses and nursing students. Moreover, I began volunteering internationally through Team Heart, a Boston-Rwanda based non-profit organization that performs open heart surgeries to patients with advanced rheumatic heart diseases and congenital heart diseases in Rwanda. My role within Team Heart is to conduct patient teaching across the continuum of care and educating local nurses on patient surgical care. In 2011, I was the co-investigator in a research that examined the anticoagulation therapy adherence by post heart surgical patients in Rwanda. In addition, I was involved in screening for streptococcal infection in school aged children.
ACLS and PALS are a critical component in patient safety and level of survival. They are a set of clinical skills that must be learned and understood by healthcare providers. My ACLS and PALS skills have come in handy many times as a staff nurse. I applied these essential clinical interventions in emergencies at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. These are skills that save people lives therefore it is imperative that I possess this crucial knowledge and I am able to apply it immediately when an emergency occurs. ACLS and PALS clinical tools and interventions can be utilized anywhere such as on a sports field, in the community, on a plane, in a bus, in a home, etc..The ability to perform cardiac resuscitation in a timely manner makes a difference between life and death. According to the research article that was published in PubMed Central (PMC) titled” Impact of Advanced Cardiac Support Training Program on the Outcome of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in a Tertiary Care Hospital”, there were a total of 627 in-hospital cardiac arrests, 284 during the pre-ACLS training period and 343 during the post ACLS training period. In the pre-ACLS training period, 52 patients (18.3%) had return of spontaneous circulation, compared with 97 patients (28.3%) in the post ACLS training period. Survival to hospital discharge was also significantly higher in the post ACLS training period (67 patients, 69.1%) than in the pre-ACLS training period (12 patients, 23.1%). (Sodhi K. &all). Having ACLS/ PALS skills and knowledge gives the confidence to know what to do in emergency situations to save somebody’s life or prevent complications.
My professional goals are founded on what I have learned during the time that I have spent with patients and their families which allowed me to realize that I can advocate for them better and ensure the best quality care as a healthcare leader through health care management, policy, research and other factors that affect patient care. As a future healthcare leader, I plan to continue participating in innovative initiatives, lifelong learning and implementing evidence based practice. I believe that the Health Services Leadership and Management MS concentration at the University of Maryland will prepare me to develop into the type of a Nurse and Healthcare Leader that I aspire to become in healthcare delivery. I believe that the AMRI scholarship will help to alleviate some of the financial burden that is associated with higher education costs.
Where will your ACLS or PALS certification take you? Write about where you are in your career goals now and where you see yourself in five, ten and fifteen years.
In concluding, my future career goals aim at continuing to serve others through healthcare delivery, leadership and management. In addition, advocating for patients and other vulnerable populations and educating future nurses and other healthcare leaders and practitioners are my objectives. What I hope to become in five years from now is a health care leader in quality care improvement field where my main responsibilities will be managing, strengthening and ameliorating healthcare systems. Today’s healthcare complexities, information technology innovations, scientific discoveries, and challenges call for leaders who are competent to lead in this highly multifaceted and interdisciplinary environment. Nurse leaders are in the position to participate in solution seeking processes, healthcare system designing, and implementing plans in efficient and cost effective manner while maintaining quality care as their uppermost priority. Nurse leaders, specifically Chief Nurse Officers, are in the position to shape and advocate for healthcare delivery models that support patient quality care and safety through interpersonal collaboration with Chief Executive Officers and other organizational governing leaders.
In the next ten to fifteen yeas from now, I hope to have had a great impact on healthcare delivery in terms of policy making that aims at proving the optimal care while minimizing healthcare costs. Furthermore, I plan to work in collaboration with other healthcare leaders and policy makers to achieve healthy people 2020 national agenda which is a collection of goals to be achieved by 2020 through national healthy living promotion and disease prevention initiatives. I will especially continue to work towards the recommended nursing leadership competencies that will be required in 2020. Those competences are global perspective, working knowledge of technology, evidence-based practice, incorporating quality and safety into organizational culture, consciously interacting with politics and policy makers in healthcare system, collaborating and creating positive and productive inter-professional teams patient care environments, balancing authentic leadership and being proactive in integrating change. I also want to strengthen my financial and business skills as these are tools that are needed to sustain a healthcare organization. I will achieve this goal by communicating well and seeking support from the institution financial experts, educating the organizational staff about being financially responsible in their practices and working in alignment with the institution economic vision to ensure its long term viability and sustainability. Furthermore, I am interested in pursuing an education program that will provide me with the necessary tools and financial knowledge that’s required as a nurse and healthcare leader.
Also, I would like to participate in developing and sustaining prevention programs that can be used inpatient and in the community that are effective, affordable and accessible by everyone regardless of their social and economic level. For instance, surgical acquired infections rate should be falling. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a surgical site infection is an infection that occurs after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery took place. Surgical Site Infections(SSI) can sometimes be superficial infections involving the skin only. Other surgical site infections are more serious and can involve tissues under the skin, organs, or implanted material. Approximately 300,000 Surgical Sites Infections per year are reported. Approximately 17% of all Surgical Site Infections are linked to long-term disabilities. Surgical Site Infection are 2-11 times higher risk for death and 75% of SSI deaths re directly attributable to SSIs. SSIs cause 7-10 additional post –op days and a surplus in healthcare costs of $3,000-29,000/SSI depending on performed procedure and pathogen. $10 billion in healthcare expenditure is spent on SSIs and their associated complications annually
Additionally, I would like to see more programs that help individuals with smoking cessation. Nearly half a million people will die from smoking-related diseases this year. Each day, more than 3,200 youths smoke their first cigarette. New products such as e-cigarettes, with effects that aren't yet understood, complicate public health messages. And if current trends continue unabated, 5.6 million of today's children and teens will go on to die prematurely during adulthood because of smoking, the report found. The 2014 surgeon general report added more entries to the official list of smoking-caused diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, the macular degeneration that can blind older adults, colon and liver cancers and cleft palate birth defects. Also, I plan on making sure that people are educated and have access to early cancer screening. The majority of cancers especially breast, cervical and colon cancers are likely to respond positively to treatments when they are detected early.
Furthermore, I am interested in researching and examining the importance of nurse leaders within healthcare organizations and how their roles and input advance patient care and the overall organizational growth. In addition, I will continue to support and be involved in innovations such as Health Information Technology (HIT) as it relates to transformation in healthcare delivery, quality care and patient safety. HIT is an innovative tool to provide healthcare. It creates a platform for interdisciplinary care teams to exchange health information and for patients to access data that is pertaining to their health. Also, quality improvement projects can be conducted using Health Information Technology. A new HIT model takes time to implement and it requires a strong, strategic, purposeful leadership. As a healthcare professional and a nurse leader, my goal is t realistically and deliberately plan, prepare and integrate HIT. My other career objective is to educate nurses and other healthcare professionals. For example, as the aging population continue to grows, patients are likely to have multiple illnesses that make their care complex. Also, as the world become a global community, new health challenges emerge and must be addressed when necessary. Therefore. it is essential for today and future healthcare practitioners receive adequate education and training to tackle medical issues and non-clinical healthcare challenges. Numerous researches have shown that the advanced nursing education correlated to a better patient care outcomes.
Furthermore, I want to to continue advocating and establishing healthcare systems and resources that support the elderly. According to the recent CDC report, 1 of 20 Americans will be 65 years or older by 2030. It is and will be essential for nurses, physicians and other healthcare professions to address individualized and patient centered care approaches that consider the elderly population special health care and social needs. One of the health needs will be to ensure that those who care for the elderly in their private residences or nursing homes receive adequate ACLS training. Elderly are more likely to suffer from heart attacks, strokes and other emergencies that require immediate medical interventions such as ACLS skills. In addition, I plan to advocate and support community centers and schools in providing both Advanced Cardiac Life Support( ACLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support ( PALS). The knowledge that is taught and learned in these programs is extremely crucial.
The voting is over. As of Jan 31, 2016, 11:59PM CST, this essay has received 7 votes.
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