Disciplined Clinical Inquiry: Advancing Evidence-Based Practice through Collaboration Among Staff Nurse Peers
Priscilla Sandford Worral, PhD, RN, University Hospital, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA
Disciplined Clinical Inquiry (DCI) is a stakeholder-driven model for change which uses action research methods to “empower nurses to collaboratively participate in identification and solution of problems directly affecting their day-to-day practice” (Sanares & Heliker, 2002). Use of this framework within the Nursing Research Council (NRC) has seen increased confidence and competence of NRC members to advance their own evidence-based practice. The next step—and it has been both a daunting and exciting one—has been to test whether similar collaboration among staff nurses on the clinical unit will demonstrate increased awareness of EBP and use of evidence to make practice decisions at the bedside. This session will describe DCI and how it has been incorporated into the EBP Awareness Project, an IRB-approved mixed methods study which will include direct care nurses on 29 inpatient and ambulatory areas of an academic medical center over the next two years.