The gap between research and practice is an ever growing concern among practitioners, researchers and policy makers. Research studies have been conducted to understand what sources of knowledge nurses use, how they access the knowledge and how they use it. Little, however, is known about the influencing factors and strategies at the organizational level in bringing new knowledge to the organization, integrating the knowledge with existing clinical experience and sustaining the knowledge in organizational memory. Clinical practice guidelines as one form of packaging or codifying knowledge from research and expert opinion have become a popular vehicle to transfer knowledge to organizations. However, the impact of guidelines in changing practice and on patient outcomes is mixed. Why are some health care organizations able to implement guidelines and positively influence patient outcomes while other organizations are faced with numerous challenges? One promising theory to understand how health care organizations access and use research or evidence- based guidelines is the organizational learning theory.

In this presentation, the author will present a literature review on organizational learning theory in the context of a study to explore the factors that influence the full utility and impact of clinical practice guidelines in health care organizations. Specifically, the guideline on prevention of falls in the older adult population will be used. A theoretical framework will be discussed that guides the author’s doctoral dissertation research study. The issue of facility-based patient falls will be used to model the efficacy of organizational learning theory as one way of understanding the transfer of knowledge in health care organization.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)