Connecting Nursing Faculty to Staff Nurses: Linking Service and Education to Promote Evidence-Based Practice

Wednesday, 14 July 2010: 8:30 AM

Tina M. Martin, PhD, RN, CFNP1
Jean Marks, MSN, RN, CNRN, MT-BC2
Kim Hoover, PhD, RN3
Sheila D. Keller, PhD2
Brenda L. Watt, BSN4
Brandi Winans, BSN5
1School of Nursing, University of Mississippi School of Nursing, Jackson, MS
2School of Nursing, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS
3School of Nursing, University of Mississippi, Jackson, MS
4Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, University of Mississippi Health Care, Jackson, MS
5Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to describe a mentoring process to incorporate evidence based practice into a nursing unit.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to analyze the effectiveness of using nursing faculty members to enhance application of evidence based research into the clinical setting.

This presentation will describe an interprofessional collaboration experience between nursing faculty with neuroscience expertise and neuroscience intensive care staff nurses at an academic health science center to mentor nurses in clinical practice to utilize evidenced base practice (EBP). Nursing faculty served as expert content resources to assist with the development of a research study hypothesis. The aim of the study was to describe differences in RN satisfaction and communication with residents, physicians, and other RNs using the Glasgow Coma Scale versus the FOUR Score Coma Scale in a neuroscience intensive care unit (NSICU).
The benefits of the academic-service partnership are numerous. This project helped to establish a collaborative link among nursing faculty with clinical expertise to staff nurses in the same specialty to promote confidence and enthusiasm for research opportunities in clinical practice.