Research Utilization Toolkits

According to Porter-O’Grady, 2016 et al p 324, our healthcare systems today are at the center of what is considered major change. Much of the change today is directly related to the foundational principles, concepts and associated with complexity in systems and relationships, and an understanding by nurse leader and follower; of what it takes to make meaningful change. Nurse Leaders, registered nurses, advance practice nurses, and other followers, at every level of our organizations must be increasingly aware of meaningful and sustainable changes that improves our healthcare systems (Porter-O’Grady, 2016 et al p 324).

As nursing leaders, the empowerment of staff to improve the delivery of safe quality care is imperative in today’s healthcare environment. The Management and Leadership track of the American Sentinel MSN program has provided the guidance to cultivate and prepare future nurse leaders to develop a sense of ownership and commitment to their work and organization. The evidenced based practice (EBP) project that is proposed will be implemented at the Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC); it will support the staff to improve the quality of care for the veteran population at this facility.

Nursing leaders must apply critical thinking and analysis skills in order to find opportunities to improve gaps in care. Consequently, nurses with the ability to identify, understand, and influence opportunities for improvements while consistently achieving quality and safety goals have unlimited opportunities to exercise leadership (Grossman & Valiga, 2012). Lastly, nurses whom have the understanding of the complexity of leadership and the awareness that the leadership role is something every nurse can fulfill will lead nurses towards change and advancing health as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) has campaigned for action while enhancing nurses’ contributions to delivering quality

As the nursing field grows, evidence-based practice is becoming more pragmatic. This is because people want to know the when, why, and how of diseases processes. Increasing knowledge on evidence-based practice has shown to improve health outcomes. Research translation models are utilized heavily in nursing to help transform findings into practice (Polit & Beck, 2012). Some models are more clinician oriented, while others are institution oriented. There are various models that are utilized by different entities. For the purpose of this paper, the Stetler Model of Research Utilization will be researched and discussed.

Nursing school programs have an integral part in ensuring that the nurse graduates from their program can deal with the increasing complex US health care system. Nursing schools can make the necessary revisions to their curriculum to better prep nursing students in evidence-based practice and make them empowered to lead change when they become graduate nurses. By using the RN LEADER framework addressed later in this summary, new RNs will be able to tackle challenges to improve and transform the US healthcare system.

Nurses play and important role in the health care system. Nurses have excellent inherent to manage change to improve the health care system (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. n.d.). They can be as innovators to lead changes. Nurses understand how to approach care and enhance quality at the lower cost (Nursing 's role in health care reform - American Nurse Today. n.d.). They can engage in research to Generate evidence-based practice and help shape the quality and safety through collecting and tracking data to enhance care. Nursing research benefits create the logical framework for clinical usage, prevention, and improved patient outcomes. Nurses can Redesign nursing education (Nursing 's role in health care reform - American Nurse Today. n.d.). All nurses should to maintain necessary competencies to match the requirements of the population aging and various culture and community health care needs, (Nursing 's role in health care reform - American Nurse Today. n.d.).

Individually perceived barriers consist of nurses’ lack of knowledge regarding research methodology, inability to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the study, less cooperation from colleagues and lack of authority to utilize research results in practice to bring change. Organizational barriers are a lack of time to implement the new evidence due to workload, insufficient resources, and inadequate administrative support to implement Evidence Based Practice (EBP) (Agnes T, et al.,

Research and Evidence Base Practice is an essential to the academic nursing. In 2015 the National Nursing Research Roundtable (NNNR) in their annual conference established the need to focus on the nursing practice, research scholarship, and nursing education. In this view, Dr. Patricia Gray, President of the (NNRR) suggest that faculty should be more able to conducted research

Florence Nightingale was a leader and change agent. Unfortunately, many nurses have now become followers instead of leaders. The IOM has called for nurses to lead the change to remove barriers to the scope of practice for nurses. This will provide more opportunities for access to high quality healthcare. As a change agent for nursing education, you have been asked to participate in an interdisciplinary group to investigate the barriers and to propose how industry and academia can work together to better address needs of a changing health care industry. This may include new roles for nurses, new leadership needs, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Discuss with your peers what points you will address with the interdisciplinary group. Support your work with current research.

What are ways to connect research and practice? How might counselors use research in marriage, couple, and family counseling?

Implementing a change project is a challenging step of the Capstone Change Project. This paper focuses on steps that must be taken to implement a change, strategies to ensure the success, involved stakeholders and their roles, educational requirements, safety issues, ethical considerations, and external or internal regulations’ effects on the process. It also include the change theory, nursing theory, and evidence based practice influences on the implementation process.

The main focus of the theory is motivation, inspiration and empowerment to create changes. It is based on the idea of empowering others to facilitate overall goal. Bennis and Nanus (1985) describe this new leader as a leader who “commits people to action, who converts leaders into leaders, and who converts leaders into agents of change” (p.3).177. According to processes to engage and motivate staff article “Transformational leadership is important for high quality care delivery, and behaviors that nurse leaders inspire, role model and reinforce are instrumental in creating work practice that deliver optimum care”.

A leader does not simply have a basic definition, but instead, can be described in various ways that have various roles. According to the author Bessie Marquis, in the book, “Leadership roles and Management Functions in Nursing”, in simpler terms, a leader is the inspiration and director of the action. A leader has various roles such as making decisions, acting as a communicator, evaluator, a mentor, a critical thinker, a teacher, a visionary, and many more of which can make up a leader. In order to have leadership qualities, a person would need to have great communication skills as well as critical thinking skills. It is important in the

Leadership traits associated with nurse executives are honesty, credibility, supportiveness, visibility, and flexibility. Nurse executives analyze nursing functions and empower nurses through participatory decision making, shared governance, and employee involvement. Nurse executives share the vision and goals of the hospital and promote application of a nursing theory into the nursing care delivery system. They anticipate the future of health care and nursing and serve as monitor, role model, and preceptor to lower level management (Upeniecks, 2003). Nurse executives in the Magnet program are required to have advance practice degrees with certification in their specialty (ANCC). Understanding evidence-based management and enabling the use of evidence-based knowledge provides the nurse executive with the tools to improve patient outcomes. The transformational leader will remove barriers to improvement and encourage outcome based thinking. While nurse leaders are charged with questioning the status quo, nurse managers in the transformational approach to leadership are charged with maintaining the status quo.

“Nurses are more than caregivers in today’s healthcare settings. They are teachers, advocates and pioneers in improving healthcare. They are stepping out of the old model and taking ownership for changes in healthcare. Nurses are developing their own scientific research programs to improve patient care. They are playing a pivotal role in healthcare reform. Nurses are becoming leaders, not followers in healthcare reform.”