Poster Presentation
Thursday, 20 July 2006
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Thursday, 20 July 2006
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
This presentation is part of : Poster Presentations II
Uncovering Hidden Treasure: A Hospital University Partnership to Promote Evidence-Based Practice
Jeanette A. McNeill, RN, DrPH, AOCN, ANP, Nursing for Target Populations, University of Texas-Houston, HSC, School of Nursing, Houston, TX, USA, Theresa L. Carroll, RN, PhD, School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA, and Caroline Powers, MSN, RN, Hospital education, Memorial Hermann Hospital, Houston, TX, USA.
Learning Objective #1: describe the effectiveness of a service and academic partnership in promoting evidence based practice within hospital settings.
Learning Objective #2: examine the influence of institutional culture on design of approaches to facilitate evidence based practice.
      Evidence Based practice(EBP) has become increasingly important to health care and connotes the provision of high quality care based on the strongest scientific evidence available. While the need for EBP is obvious, operationalizing  EBP  provides both challenges and opportunities. Challenges for nursing include  higher patient acuity and continuing nursing shortages balanced with demands for quality, technological advances and pressures from third party payers. Responding to these challenges, a tertiary care level one trauma center and a School of Nursing developed a win-win partnership that maximized the resources of both institutions.
      The purposes of the collaborative effort were to promote a scientific base for practice and facilitate professional development for nurses within a framework of transformational leadership. Two initiatives were established focusing on 1)  research and EBP, and 2) a formalized program of career coaching to support personal growth of nursing staff .  University faculty members and nursing management partnered in the project.  An inductive process was employed to assess needs, compile strengths and build on existing supports for the shift to more research-based, professional practice.        Results of an organizational assessment included:  1) discovery of “hidden treasures”, a wealth of covert activities providing evidence for practice change and professional development. 2) recognition by staff of value of an infrastructure for dissemination of research and EBP. An institution-wide eLearning initiative to educate all interdisciplinary team members in the fundamentals of the EBP process was mounted.  Recognizing hidden treasures/pockets of excellence contributed champions for EBP.  Coaching resulted in 13 abstract submissions and 91% acceptance and helped nursing staff begin to coordinate personal goals with organizational goals. Coaching also supported EBP awareness via intranet with 24/7 availability.  Implications of the collaboration include effective approaches to shifting the paradigm from competently managing crisis care to the deliberate examination of evidence to support that competency.   
   

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