Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Implementing Best Practice Guidelines: Advancing Clinical Excellence and Client Care in the Community
Karen Ray, RN, BScN, MSc and Nancy Lefebre, RN, BScN, MScN. Knowledge & Practice, Saint Elizabeth Health Care, Markham, ON, Canada
| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to identify the required steps within the process of becoming an Evidence Based Practice organization. |
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to identify successful strategies used to implement and evaluate Nursing Best Practice Guidelines throughout a community based health care organization. |
Background: Our vision is to be a phenomenal knowledge and care exchange organization, where nurses work in a professional environment that promotes critical inquiry and the use of evidence to drive excellence. The implementation and evaluation of nursing best practice guidelines has been a critical strategy to achieve this goal.
Learning Objectives:
- The learner will be able to identify the required steps within the process of becoming an Evidence Based Practice organization.
2. The learner will be able to identify successful strategies used to implement and evaluate Nursing Best Practice Guidelines throughout a community based health care organization.
Methods: Over the last three years, we have been one of the RNAO’s Spotlight Organizations and have implemented three guidelines across our organization and included our three product lines of nursing, home support and rehabilitation therapies. We began our implementation planning with the creation of a solid structure that included identifying key organizational stakeholders. A standardized approach to implementation was used across the province including: evaluation of organizational readiness; creation of implementation strategies including operational and practice supports; education and other dissemination strategies; and the identification of quality indicators. Process and outcome evaluation have included assessment of knowledge uptake (pre and post knowledge tests), practice changes (pre and post chart abstraction), and satisfaction with implementation strategies.
Conclusions: Many organizations are working to successfully implement best practices. Careful attention to documenting our implementation strategies, evaluating outcomes, and critically considering improvement strategies have resulted in our ability to learn from our approaches and increase our implementation effectiveness and sustainability. By sharing our successes and challenges as well as lessons learned, the audience will gain insight into the preparation and process of implementing evidence into practice to improve quality care in the community.