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Using Technology to Bring Best Evidence to the Point of Care

Friday, 11 July 2008: 10:40 AM
Irmajean Bajnok, RN, MSN, PhD , International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs, Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada
Rishma Nazarali, RN , Registered Nurses Association, Toronto, ON, Canada
Elizabeth Chiu , The Registered Nurses Assocation of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada
Mike Watson , International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs, Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada
Keith Powell, BA, AIT , Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, Toronto, QC, Canada

Learning Objective 1: To describe key elements of the RNAO Best Practice Guideline Program and its impact on practice at the point of care.

Learning Objective 2: To outline how technology and specific evidence based practice tools can facilitate clinical decision making for nurses at the point of care.

The Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) leads a world renowned Best Practice Guidelines Program that incorporates rigorous guideline development, dissemination, implementation and evaluation processes. The program is focused on both clinical and healthy work environment guidelines. Through a variety of successful implementation strategies focused on individuals, organizations and systems, guidelines have been implemented across all sectors of health care in Canada and internationally. To date all guidelines, related practice tools, research studies, and implementation networks are readily accessible on the RNAO web site.

In order to facilitate point of care access, RNAO has recently embarked on an initiative, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, to develop evidence based decision supports and quick reference guides available through web based technology. These resources are based on the guidelines and can be loaded onto PDAs or tablets for ready use by nurses at point of care.

This presentation will provide an overview of the stages of the project including creation of a framework to guide the development of decision trees related to the guidelines, incorporation of evidence and recommendations from the guidelines to support clinical decision making, inclusion of practice tools, and conversion to an electronic format.

Participants will have the opportunity to view the types of evidence based decision supports and quick reference guides developed for various areas of nursing practice and see how they can be used to support evidence-based practice. Lessons learned about best approaches to developing useful web based clinical decision supports and quick reference guides for point of care clinical decision making will be shared, as well as how the initiative itself has affected the overall guideline development methodology.

See more of: Technology in Nursing Leadership and Management
See more of: Evidence-Based Practice Sessions – Oral Paper & Posters