Start | Browse by Day | Author Index | Keyword Index

Nursing Order Sets: Translating Evidence Into Action

Saturday, 16 November 2013

Rita Wilson, RN, MEd., MN
International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs, Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada
Irmajean Bajnok, RN, MSN, PhD
International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs, Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada

Learning Objective 1: Explain the potential use of nursing order sets to translate best practice guidelines into actionable nursing interventions.

Learning Objective 2: Describe one approach to nursing order set development.

In general, health care organizations understand the need to promote evidence-based practice to influence health outcomes. Yet, the literature continues to highlight the significant gap between the creation of nursing knowledge and its incorporation into nursing practice.  This finding suggests that health care organizations continue to face significant barriers in bridging the knowledge-to-practice gap.

This presentation introduces the concept of nursing order sets as one methodology for translating best practice guidelines into actionable nursing interventions that can be incorporated into clinical information and decision support systems or used within a paper-based or hybrid order-entry system. It details one approach to nursing order set development that incorporates the nursing process and the use of standardized nursing terminology.  It highlights the potential use of nursing order sets to greatly advance the nursing profession by paving the way for standardization of nursing practice, where possible, to facilitate future research and comparative analysis of nursing data across health care sectors and geographical locations. Nursing order sets also offer tremendous potential as an enabler for evidence-based nursing practice and increased visibility of nurses’ contribution to client health outcomes.

See more of: Evidence-Based Practice Posters Session 1
See more of: Oral Paper & Poster: Evidence-Based Practice Sessions