Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing: Scope and Standards of WOC Practice, 2nd Edition: An Executive Summary.

Abstract

Wound, ostomy, and continence (WOC) nursing was recognized as a nursing specialty by the American Nurses Association in February 2010, and the Society published the original scope and standards of WOC nursing practice in May 2010. The Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, 2nd Edition is the definitive resource promoting excellence in professional practice, quality care, and improved patient outcomes in WOC specialty practice. It can be used to articulate the value of WOC nurses to administrators, legislators, payers, patients, and others. The second edition also provides an overview of the scope of WOC nursing practice including a description of the specialty, the history and evolution of WOC nursing, characteristics of WOC nursing practice, and description of the trispecialty. The document describes various WOC nurse roles, populations served, practice settings, care coordination, and collaboration. Educational preparation, levels of practice within WOC specialty nursing, certification, mandate for continuous professional development, ethics, current trends, future considerations and challenges, and standards of WOC nursing practice and professional performance with competencies for each standard are provided. The purpose of this Executive Summary is to describe the process for developing the scope and standards document, provide an overview of the scope of WOC nursing practice, and list the standards of practice and professional performance along with the competencies for each level of WOC nurse provider. The original document is available from the WOCN Society's online book store (www.wocn.org).