The Universal Onboarding Project is an innovation designed to standardize hospital orientation education for nursing students when onboarding for clinical and practicum. The purpose of the project is to facilitate the timely entry into hospital settings by reducing redundancies in documentation during the onboarding process. A group of stakeholders representing Maryland schools and hospitals convened in March 2020 and laid the groundwork for the project. Twenty-one Maryland schools and hospitals participated in a 15 item survey used to identify potential barriers, advantages, and opportunities for using standardized onboarding educational materials. The survey found that for 95% of participating organizations there were no state, accreditation or other regulatory requirements preventing them from participating. 90% of institutions agreed that they would participate in the project.
Sixty-one educational topics were identified and organized thematically into seven categories which are aligned with the State of Maryland regulations (COMAR), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Joint Commission (JC) standards.
The 7 categories are:
- Corporate compliance and code of conduct
- Cultural competence and respect
- Hospital acquired conditions and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS)
- Infection control and exposure prevention
- Patient bill of rights and responsibilities
- Patient confidentiality, HIPAA and Protected Health Information (PHI)
- Personal protective equipment and transmission-based precautions.
Each presentation includes a 5-10 item evaluation of learning. The LITMOS educational platform (also used by the Maryland Organization of Nurse Leaders) is being used to house the educational materials. The educational materials are scheduled to be completed by June, 2022.
Currently, our focus is outreach. Committee members are speaking with healthcare organization and UMSON leadership to engage and enlist nursing schools and hospitals to participate in the project and prepare for full implementation by the fall 2022. We have representation from several large hospital systems including Medstar Health, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the University of Maryland Medical System. Calvert Health and Mercy Medical Center are also members of the committee. Representation from academia include Coppin State University, Johns Hopkins, Stevenson School of Nursing, and the University of Maryland. Doctors Community Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, and LifeBridge in addition to Montgomery College and the College of Southern Maryland were involved in the initial project and were integral for laying the groundwork.