Establish a learning environment. Investing in a health care culture of continued learning will improve nurse aides' performance in the long run, yielding a higher probability of patient satisfaction. Ensure that all departments implement practices that support this priority.
Provide diverse opportunities for continued learning for nurse aides. Because nurse aides are learning continued critical-thinking skills as adults, apply adult education teaching techniques. Although critical thinking involves abstract reasoning, retention is much higher when these skills are learned and practiced in real-life scenarios, where hearing, seeing and doing reinforce principles through concrete application, according to Nurse-Aid.com. Utilizing multisensory teaching techniques in in-services, seminars and workshops ensure that the human resources investment of setting aside continuing education time will prove worthwhile. Rather than lecture on abstract theory, provide critical-thinking training that physically demonstrates skills like analysis, reasoning and problem solving.
Offer positive incentives for nurse aides to continue pursuing critical-thinking skills. Work with your health care administration to consider tuition reimbursement programs or brainstorm creative competitions with rewards for critical-thinking skills, like sudoku tournaments or other strategy games. Nurse-Aid.com recommends providing training seminars that utilize critical thinking in other areas of life besides health care, like budgeting or child care.
Assess the results of implementing a learning-centered environment within your health care context. Regularly assess factors like rates of employee injury, employee retention, employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and number of nurses' aides pursuing further education. Continually improve your nurse aides' training efforts based off of regular assessments. When a strong nurse aide critical-thinking training program is in place, consider pairing it with character education for a well-rounded learning system.