Israeli breast care nurses as a learning organization.

ABSTRACT

This article will look at the theory of a Learning Organization as described by Senge and the Israeli Breast Care Nurses as an example. A description of the theory of a Learning Organization, the role of the Breast Care Nurses in Israel and the relation between the two will be described. Since 1996, the role of the Breast Care Nurse was founded in Israel. At that time, the role with its importance was very hard to be recognized by the health care team and other professionals of the multidisciplinary team for breast cancer patients. Since the role was initiated, it had been developing all over Israel through the support given by the Israel Cancer Association. As a learning organization, the Breast Care Nurses have a few goals To learn to give patients the most updated and relevant information; to be a part and be seen as equal as the other members of the multidisciplinary team for breast cancer patients; to have knowledge which empowers them as a working group; to enable to teach students, mainly nursing students, in basic and further education and to help continually teach a new generation of nurses. This learning organization involves some formal and informal education. Although oncology nurses do much of the ideas we have described, we suggest using a strict model to help in implementing a Learning Organization. Future research can examine the outcomes of a Learning Organization on oncology nursing.