Got Projects? An Innovative Use of Technology to Approve and Track Nursing Projects

Supporting a Magnet culture includes mentoring the next generation of nurse scientists. Using a triad approach to monitoring, mentoring, and tracking nursing projects enables the growth of nursing involvement in research, quality improvement and application of evidence based practice. 

SharePoint is team collaboration software from Microsoft Office. In our organization, SharePoint was introduced as a document sharing option for departments, committees and work teams. At first, the Nursing Division utilized SharePoint as intended for committee/council sites, but soon realized its potential to meet other needs of the Division. Through collaboration with information technology, nursing designed and built an electronic approval and tracking process for nursing projects.

This unique use of SharePoint has provided the opportunity to not only approve and track nursing projects electronically, but design a step-by-step process for conducting projects and receive mentoring from internal experts along the way.  A Nursing Project Review Board (NPRB) consisting of quality experts and nurse scientists was developed to oversee this new process.  The nurse submits the project in the form of PICO (problem, intervention, comparison, outcome), estimates the time necessary to complete the project and electronically submits the project to the manager for approval. After manager approval, it routes to the NPRB. The NPRB determines the type of project (research, quality, evidence-based practice, program evaluation), assigns a mentor and ensures the design/methodology is sound before final approval. The project lead automatically receives quarterly update reminders to inform the NPRB of progress. Also embedded within the system are resources to assist the lead through each step of the project including workshops, library resources, article critique forms, and biostatistician contacts.

Since its inception in early 2014, 65 projects have been submitted. A database is automatically created with all the projects and posted on the intranet so anyone can view the current project list; this transparency results in reduction of work duplication. This innovative approach allows an organization to support nursing involvement in projects and improvement in mentoring and tracking nurses’ professional work.