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Professional Development

Clinical Advancement Programs

At Orlando Health, clinical nursing advancement ladders exist to promote clinical excellence and professional development of registered nurses in direct clinical patient care and nurse leaders. Advancement is attained based on levels of education, years of experience, certification, and completion of professional activities.  As soon as the educational, nursing experience and elective criteria are met, registered nurses can be promoted on the ladder at any point during the year.

Acute Care Registered Nurse Clinical Ladder Program

The Acute Care Ladder differentiates the levels of education and competency for registered nurses, encourages and rewards attainment of higher levels of education, certification, and practice. Using the framework of the Orlando Health Nursing Professional Practice Model and Patricia Benner’s Novice to Expert theoretical framework, five levels of the acute care ladder can be achieved. As soon as the educational, nursing experience and elective criteria are met, clinical nurses can be promoted on the ladder at any point during the year. The five levels are:

  • Clinical Nurse I
  • Clinical Nurse II
  • Clinical Nurse III
  • Clinical Nurse IV
  • Clinical Nurse V

Operating Room Ladder Program

The Operating Room Ladder distinguishes between the levels of competency and education for registered nurses, rewards and encourages education, certification, and years of experience as an operating room nurse.

Advancement on the Operating Room Ladder can occur at any point during the year once the years of experience, education, and certification requirements are met for the three levels of the ladder. The levels are:

  • Operating Room Nurse I
  • Operating Room Nurse II
  • Operating Room Nurse III

Nursing Conference Scholarship

The Nursing Conference Scholarship Fund is available to clinical registered nurses who are involved in direct clinical care. This conference scholarship fund is designed to support nurses who are pursuing continuing education credits to support their licensure, credentialing or overall professional development.

How many awarded in FY 2019: 35

Orlando Health Professional Nursing Academy

The Professional Nursing Academy (PNA) exists to provide opportunities (live, e-courses and blended learning) for the development of clinical nurses and for nursing leaders to improve their professional nursing practice, in the areas of nursing practice, quality and safety, nursing research and nursing leadership. 

Quality & Safety

  • Performance Improvement
  • How to conduct a PDSA cycle
  • Making Sense of Data and Graphs

Nursing Practice

  • Certification Review Series
  • Precepting, Mentoring and Peer Review
  • Professional Governance Series
  • Magnet Journey Series

Research & Evidence-Based Practice

  • Nursing Research Education Series
  • Evidence-Based Practice Workshop
  • Writing for Publication

Nurses by the numbers (system level)

  • Number of clinical RNs – 5,407
  • Number of BSN RNs - 3,010 or 59.57 percent
  • Certification Rate - 44.37 percent
  • RN Survey Response Rate - 81 percent

Nursing Leadership Development

  • Project Management for Nurse Leaders
  • Nursing Operations Manager Transition to Practice Program
  • Clinical Assistant Manager Transition to Practice Program
  • Fundamentals of Nursing Leadership E-course

Nursing Excellence Conference

The Orlando Health Nursing Excellence Conference provides a motivational learning environment to recognize and celebrate excellence in nursing care and leadership. As a result, each year, nurses showcase their best practices, performance improvement projects and nursing research at the Nursing Excellence Conference. This full-day conference is a highly anticipated event that inspires and engages nurses at all levels. 

Of those posters presented at the poster session, five posters were selected for special recognition for 2020.

  1. First Prize: An Explorative Study on Nurses' Attitudes and Beliefs of Medication Safety and Reporting in Practice. Andrea Schuermann MSN, RN, CNML, NE-BC and Laura Arkin MSN, APRN-CNS, ONC, CCNS
  2. Second Prize: From Worst to First: A Collaborative Approach to Decreasing Urinary Catheter Utilization and CAUTI. Suzanne Ashworth, MSN, APRN, CCRN, CCNS and Jeannie Schiller, MSN, APRN
  3. Third Prize: Responsiveness PI. Wendy Cooper, MSN, RN-BC and Patricia Geddie, PhD, APRN, AOCNS, FCNS
  4. Honorable Mention: Reducing Nightshift Calls to Physicians and Delivering Quality Patient Care: A Process Improvement Project. Kristy Hemmingway, MS, BSN, RN, NE-B