The Importance of Follow-up in the Teaching, Implementing and Sustaining of Evidence-Based Practice

Friday, 28 July 2017: 11:25 AM

Jennifer H. Dean, BS, BSN, RN
College of Nursing, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Purpose:

This session will focus on the evidence-based follow-up strategies utilized to support the evidence-based practice (EBP) process and the EBP teams through discussions and meetings in the collaborative work between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and The Center for Transdisciplinary Evidence-based Practice (CTEP) at The Ohio State University College of Nursing. CTEP has anecdotally noted, in working with a variety of healthcare organizations over the past 5 years, that when follow-up interactions/sessions are completed with participants 3-months after the initial training session, these facilities were more successful at implementing and sustaining EBP efforts and projects. In addition, when others have implemented the Advancing Research and Clinical practice through close Collaboration (ARCC) Model over a 12-month period with planned follow up sessions, improved patient outcomes have been clearly demonstrated, including a reduction in ventilator days, pressure ulcer rates and congestive heart failure readmissions (Melnyk, 2012).

Methods:

Based on the referenced information, anecdotal experience and the education literature, CTEP and MSKCC forged up a 15-month relationship that included an intensive educational program along with a post training follow schedule where the CTEP team met with participants every 3 months following the initial training session.

Results:

This session will include how the intentional follow-up meetings addressed the EBP teams as they progressed in their moving through the steps of the EBP process: from critical appraisal to recommendations; from recommendations to action plan; from action plan to implementation and; from implementation to measurement. The meetings and discussions were completed either in person, with several members of CTEP’s team traveling to MSKCC to meet with participants, via telephone or with the use of virtual meetings online. In addition to meetings, the groups were each provided with an online collaborative document that clearly laid out the expectations for the planned next steps based on where each group was in the EBP process. The presentation will include feedback from participants about the follow-up sessions and their effectiveness in assisting with the movement through the EBP process as well as results from additional data collected over the course of the follow-up.

Conclusion:

Continuing to provide structured follow-up to participants is an essential component of an effective EBP implementation program.