Nursing Professional Practice Model

A Nursing Professional Practice Model (PPM) is a way of thinking about what nurses value most in their nursing practice.

At MUSC, we have developed a graphic based on Charleston’s wrought-iron gates to represent our professional practice model. It is visual depiction of the professional practice of nursing at MUSC. The craftsmanship of Philip Simmons is displayed throughout Charleston in his beautiful wrought-iron gates. These became the inspiration for our model - combining beauty with strength and purpose.

Gate image that represents MUSC nursing's professional practice model. 

It represents:

  • the relationship between organizational goals and values;
  • how nursing delivers patient care; and,
  • how the organization evaluates the results for the patient.

The theme of this Professional Practice Model is "CARING WITHIN A TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE" - where excellence provides the strong framework, but caring is the core concept, touching the patient first, then his/her family, and their community.

Emanating from CARING (like rays from the sun) are the values MUSC nurses demonstrate as they care for our patients:

Collaboration with the entire healthcare team. Nurses function as an equal member of a caring team that creates a healing environment and fosters trust between, clinicians, patients and the community;

Expertise as nurses grow from novice to expert at the safe, effective delivery of nursing skills;

  Advocacy for the patient in all respects, including equity in access healthcare;

Integrity by being worthy of the trust of patients, families, & colleagues;

Innovation through creativity in all facets of our work; and,

Accountability through responsiveness to outcome measures and by maintaining current knowledge.

The central element of our practice, caring, led to the adoption of Relationship-Based Care (RBC) as our care delivery system. A care delivery system guides how nurses and units provide care to a patient and their families. Our RBC identifies the three fundamental relationships at the core of the patient experience: the nurses’ relationships to self, to colleagues, and to patients and families.