Summer 2015

Dixie State University

BSN Program
NURS 4600 Senior Capstone
Learning Plan
Overview
Completion of the Senior Capstone is done primarily by the BSN student in cooperation with
the course instructor and in most circumstances, a clinical mentor/professional colleague.
The purpose of the plan is to provide a blueprint for learning activities and participation in
this learning experience. The plan is to be completed and approved by the course instructor
and a mentor prior to participating in the Senior Capstone experience.

Senior Capstone Placement

Student name: Jentry N. Hess
Name and address of cooperating facility/agency:
Intermountain Healthcare Homecare and Hospice Intake
11520 Redwood Rd. South Jordan, Ut 84095
Name, email address, and telephone number of mentor/professional colleague:
Linda Powell RN, MSN
Linda.Powell@imail.org
385-887-7350

Statement of Purpose
I am interested in eventually becoming a nursing manager or case manager at a clinic of
some sort after I obtain my Masters degree. While I am not certain what department I want
to specialize or end up in, I do know I want to change lives and motivate people to improve
their lives. Working in different offices and clinics I have seen how much impact we as
employees all truly have on patient cares, whether that be directly or indirectly; that by the
office/clinic having a high morale, effectively communicating and having trust within one
another, we portray that to the patients and are able to provide the best care possible.
Recently I started working at a new facility in nursing intake for a home health and hospice
department. Prior to me starting they went through a lot of recent changes including a new
manager and up to 10 new employees, this all appeared to have decreased the morale
around the office. People were not respecting the office, their job, nor their responsibilities.
Employees were coming in up to an hour late without notice, not focusing on their work at
hand and slacking when at work, charts were taking up to 5 hours to complete (our goal is
under 2), and not trusting and effectively communicating with one another due to so many
new faces. There was also not just a lot of lack of communication issues arising within the
office/department internally but with clinicians out in the field and other

offices/clinics/hospitals externally as well. This lack of communication and trust was causing
a lot of errors to occur in the charts and orders, and therefore the patient cares.
Upon my second week I had a meeting with my manager and we were discussing the
morale and his feelings about the situation. He was new as well and felt we could switch
things around for the better.
We voted as a department on new nursing intake commitments for a healing experience
(ground rules) that we must abide by. The commitments are:
Be on time
I encourage and support others, going out of my way to help others
I maintain communication up, down, and across
When I dont know I will ask
I am open for positive and negative feedback, and will then put that feedback into
practice
I keep all conversation positive
I speak respectfully
Our goal is to improve the work ethics of those slacking, providing more productive, efficient
work, and maintain effective communication within the department and with the
offices/clinics we work closely with. We will come up with ideas focused on that specific
commitment to encourage those to abide by the ground rule as well as more effective
approaches in doing so. See what is working currently and what needs to be changed or
revised.
We have come up with a committee that is in charge of educating and presenting each of
these new commitments to the staff and coming up with ideas to improve and guidelines to
follow for each. I was designated to be leader of the nursing intake role in the committee
and from this am hoping to boost the morale of the department as a whole, while also
improving productivity. I think our efforts will benefit the organization as a whole by lifting
this department and others, as we work with so many other areas and departments within
Intermountain. I am hoping this involvement will give me the leadership experience I crave
and need to move on and up in this nursing field.

Goals
Please list at least 5 primary goals for your learning experience.
1. Staff with understand and abide by our established nursing intake commitments to a
healing experience.
2. Provide more accurate, proficient work as a department
3. Gain experience in a leadership role.
4. Charts will be done in less than 2 hours
5. Boost the morale of the intake department

Description of Activities
The three members of the committee (one from nursing, one from pre-auth and one from
intake coordinator) will meet periodically to bounce ideas off one another and come up with
a game plan as to how we are going to present each commitment to the staff each month.
We will come up with ideas focused on that specific commitment to encourage our co-

workers to abide by the rule as well as more effective approaches to do so. Once a month
at our department meetings we will present one of the commitments and educate the staff
on the importance of the commitment along with ideas and encouragements to fulfill the
commitment. We will get clearance on the ideas and presentations from our manager
Manuel and supervisor Linda. We will encourage all staff participation to be sure all coworkers are feeling valued and empowered by having a say in our commitments and
regulations that go along with them. We will also encourage productivity through these
commitments. Manuel has access to the time it is taking on average to complete our work, I
will evaluate the time with him at the end of my capstone to see if any improvement has
been made.

Evaluation
At the end of my capstone I will look at the numbers to see if the charts are being done in a
timelier manner (under 2 hours is the goal), with fewer mistakes, and our department is
doing a better job collectively as a whole. I will also administer a survey to see if people feel
as if they understand the commitments explained to them each month thus far and if they
feel as if the morale has improved around the department.

Student Signature _____________________________Date_________

Instructor Signature___________________________ Date_________
Mentor Signature_____________________________ Date_________