Leveraging the Power of Board Leadership in Professional Nursing Organizations.

Nurses who aspire to lead a professional nursing organization can significantly influence the future of the nursing profession. This article describes 4 essential responsibilities required in a board leadership position as identified by a group of nurse leaders who have each served as the board president of a national or international professional nursing organization.

Safety organizing, emotional exhaustion, and turnover in hospital nursing units.

CONTEXT: Prior research has found that safety organizing behaviors of registered nurses (RNs) positively impact patient safety. However, little research exists on how engaging in safety organizing affects caregivers. OBJECTIVES: While we know that organizational processes can have divergent effects on organizational and employee outcomes, little research exists on the effects of pursuing highly reliable performance through safety organizing on caregivers. Specifically, we examined whether, and the conditions under which, safety organizing affects RN emotional exhaustion and nursing unit turnover rates. SUBJECTS: Subjects included 1352 RNs in 50 intensive care, internal medicine, labor, and surgery nursing units in 3 Midwestern acute-care hospitals who completed questionnaires between August and December 2011 and 50 Nurse Managers from the units who completed questionnaires in December 2012. RESEARCH DESIGN: Cross-sectional analyses of RN emotional exhaustion linked to survey data on safety organizing and hospital incident reporting system data on adverse event rates for the year before survey administration. Cross-sectional analysis of unit-level RN turnover rates for the year following the administration of the survey linked to survey data on safety organizing. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analysis indicated that safety organizing was negatively associated with RN emotional exhaustion on units with higher rates of adverse events and positively associated with RN emotional exhaustion with lower rates of adverse events. Tobit regression analyses indicated that safety organizing was associated with lower unit level of turnover rates over time. CONCLUSIONS: Safety organizing is beneficial to caregivers in multiple ways, especially on nursing units with high levels of adverse events and over time.

Image is more than a uniform: the promise of assurance.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the meaning of the phrase "image of the nurse" in the context of the desired brand experience of assurance. BACKGROUND: A brand is a promise that lives in the minds of consumers. Nurses play a key role in delivering on the brand promise of a hospital. METHODS: Using focus groups, the authors applied a deductive approach to generate data. Discussion transcripts were analyzed by establishing codes and identifying themes. RESULTS: The most frequent comment from participants was that for nurses to communicate assurance, they must 1st be clean, well groomed, and understated in overall appearance. Nurse behaviors that reassure patients include being present with patients, helping patients know what to expect, and demonstrating a consistent team approach. CONCLUSIONS: Overall appearance and behaviors define the image of nurses and contribute significantly to the brand of assurance.

Excellence and evidence in staffing: a data-driven model for excellence in staffing (2nd edition).

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, 2010) and the Institute of Medicine's (IOM, 2011) Future of Nursing report have prompted changes in the U.S. health care system. This has also stimulated a new direction of thinking for the profession of nursing. New payment and priority structures, where value is placed ahead of volume in care, will start to define our health system in new and unknown ways for years. One thing we all know for sure: we cannot afford the same inefficient models and systems of care of yesterday any longer. The Data-Driven Model for Excellence in Staffing was created as the organizing framework to lead the development of best practices for nurse staffing across the continuum through research and innovation. Regardless of the setting, nurses must integrate multiple concepts with the value of professional nursing to create new care and staffing models. Traditional models demonstrate that nurses are a commodity. If the profession is to make any significant changes in nurse staffing, it is through the articulation of the value of our professional practice within the overall health care environment. This position paper is organized around the concepts from the Data-Driven Model for Excellence in Staffing. The main concepts are: Core Concept 1: Users and Patients of Health Care, Core Concept 2: Providers of Health Care, Core Concept 3: Environment of Care, Core Concept 4: Delivery of Care, Core Concept 5: Quality, Safety, and Outcomes of Care. This position paper provides a comprehensive view of those concepts and components, why those concepts and components are important in this new era of nurse staffing, and a 3-year challenge that will push the nursing profession forward in all settings across the care continuum. There are decades of research supporting various changes to nurse staffing. Yet little has been done to move that research into practice and operations. While the primary goal of this position paper is to generate research and innovative thinking about nurse staffing across all health care settings, a second goal is to stimulate additional publications. This includes a goal of at least 20 articles in Nursing Economic$ on best practices in staffing and care models from across the continuum over the next 3 years.

Transforming the image of nursing: the evidence for assurance.

A nurse's uniform influences perceptions about nursing practice and thus contributes significantly to the overall image of a nurse. A nurse's uniform also can represent the brand of an organization, the tangible and intangible attributes that distinguish an organization from its competitors. The rebranding of a major health care system provided a unique opportunity to refine the "image of nurses" within the organization. This article describes the planning, evidence gathering, and implementation of a major initiative to promote professional nursing practice.

Building a culture of innovation by maximizing the role of the RN.

By the year 2020, as hospitals morph into entirely different kinds of service providers, nurses too will look altogether different. Those with the capacity to embrace disruptive innovation, along with all the unknowns that accompany it, will be successful at guiding their organizations into the future. Nurse executives must act now to build nursing cultures capable of massive and transformational change--change that will alter the way patient care is perceived, delivered, and evaluated. One hospital system is using a Think Tank approach to pilot demonstration projects that aim to maximize the role of the registered nurse and redefine expectations around patient care delivery. Early work indicates that new thinking combined with "permission to fail" from nursing leadership is essential to success. Lean Six Sigma principles and creativity tools from inside and outside of health care are being adopted with promising results. Exemplars show that by creating a sense of urgency around a big opportunity, this health care system is developing change initiatives that are literally transforming culture.

Academic-Practice Partnerships: The Interdependence Between Leadership and Followership.

In this article, there is a discussion focused on three contemporary nursing topics: leadership, followership, and academic-practice partnerships. These comments are framed within the context of the current healthcare system transformation. There is a focus on why each of these topics is relevant to the nursing profession in leading change and advancing health. Finally, there is a description about the interdependence of leadership and followership and the significance these hold for the interdependence between nursing education and nursing practice.

Analyzing fluctuating unit census for timely staffing intervention.

A computer information system, which can provide cost-saving measures useful in adequately allocating nursing staff in the face of decreasing patient stays, increasing patient admissions and discharges, and the unexpected transfers surrounding busy nursing units, is explored.

Evidence-based assessment of acute pain in older adults: current nursing practices and perceived barriers.

OBJECTIVES: To report data on current nurse practice behaviors related to evidence-based assessment of acute pain in older adults, perceived stage of adoption of pain assessment practices, and perceptions of barriers to optimal assessment in this population. METHODS: Medical records from 709 older adult patients hospitalized with hip fractures from 12 acute care settings were abstracted for nurse assessment practices during the first 72 hours after admission. Questionnaires sent to nurses on study units regarding perceived stage of adoption and barriers to assessment in older adults. RESULTS: Data revealed several areas in which pain assessment practices were not optimal. Pain was not routinely assessed every 4 hours, and pain location was assessed even less frequently. Pain behaviors were assessed more in patients with a diagnosis of dementia compared to those without dementia, but the frequency of pain behavior assessments was low. Pain was not routinely assessed within 60 minutes of administering an analgesic. Nurses reported not using optimal pain assessment practices even when they were aware of and persuaded that those practices were desirable. In addition, nurses reported that difficulty communicating with patients created the greatest challenge in managing pain. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that pain is not being assessed and reassessed in a manner that is consistent with current practice recommendations in older adult patients with pathologic processes that highly suggest the presence of acute pain.

Understanding situation awareness in nursing work: a hybrid concept analysis.

Eighty percent of medical error are attributed to human factors. Human factors experts suggest the least explored factor in patient errors is attention, specifically, situation awareness. The purpose of this article was to analyze the concept of situation awareness using a hybrid concept analysis. The experience of situation awareness among nurses was elicited during the fieldwork phase through semistructured interviews. Content and relational analyses yielded 9 themes: perception, comprehension, projection, knowledge and expertise, cognitive overload, interruption management, task management, instantaneous learning, and cognitive stacking. A conceptual definition of situation awareness emerged along with recommendations for application in nursing.

Academic practice partnerships: a national dialogue.

Academic-practice partnerships are an important mechanism to strengthen nursing practice and help nurses become well positioned to lead change and advance health. Through implementing such partnerships, both academic institutions and practice settings will formally address the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing Committee. Effective partnerships will create systems for nurses to achieve educational and career advancement, prepare nurses of the future to practice and lead, provide mechanisms for lifelong learning, and provide a structure for nurse residency programs. This paper details the work of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing-American Organization of Nurse Executives Task Force on Academic-Practice Partnerships that has identified hallmarks of successful partnership and produced tools and shared exemplars to assist nursing leaders in developing and sustaining partnerships for the future.

Transformational leadership required to design and sustain evidence-based practice: a system exemplar.

In a pay-for-performance environment, implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice (EBP) is no longer a luxury but a necessity. A critical driving force for EBP is that our communities-the people we serve-expect to receive care based on the best available evidence. Transformational nursing leadership is required to create an infrastructure that influences organizational factors, processes and expectations, thus enabling the sustainability of EBP. The American Nurses Credentialing Center and the American Organization of Nurse Executives provide a framework for nursing leaders to consider when designing EBP implementation structures. This exemplar illustrates nursing leadership competencies with regard to implementation and sustainability of EBP within a multihospital system.

Nurse ethicist: innovative resource for nurses.

Nurses are challenged with ethical problems on a daily basis, yet when they are students, nurses may have never had an opportunity to explore the complexities of how ethics will influence every facet of their nursing practice. This article describes how a large health care system, through collaboration between academic and clinical partners, developed a nurse ethicist role to serve both the patient care environment and students in academic programs. The nurse ethicist is charged with creating and sustaining programs in ethics and nursing ethics education with the goal of improving the capacity of nurses to manage the ethical issues inherent in the care of patients in a contemporary, technology-driven health care system. The Program in Nursing Ethics includes staff education, consultation and support, and research. The addition to the faculty of a nurse ethicist who is active in clinical ethics consultation has strengthened the baccalaureate nursing curriculum by providing an instructor who creates and shares a clear vision for how ethics is central to quality nursing care. This article describes the central role of a nurse ethicist in promoting ethical nursing practice.

Translating research into practice intervention improves management of acute pain in older hip fracture patients.

OBJECTIVE: To test an interdisciplinary, multifaceted, translating research into practice (TRIP) intervention to (a) promote adoption, by physicians and nurses, of evidence-based (EB) acute pain management practices in hospitalized older adults, (b) decrease barriers to use of EB acute pain management practices, and (c) decrease pain intensity of older hospitalized adults. STUDY DESIGN: Experimental design with the hospital as the unit of randomization. STUDY SETTING: Twelve acute care hospitals in the Midwest. DATA SOURCES: (a) Medical records (MRs) of patients > or =65 years or older with a hip fracture admitted before and following implementation of the TRIP intervention and (b) physicians and nurses who care for those patients. DATA COLLECTION: Data were abstracted from MRs and questions distributed to nurses and physicians. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The Summative Index for Quality of Acute Pain Care (0-18 scale) was significantly higher for the experimental (10.1) than comparison group (8.4) at the end of the TRIP implementation phase. At the end of the TRIP implementation phase, patients in the experimental group had a lower mean pain intensity rating than those in the comparison group ( p<.0001). CONCLUSION: The TRIP intervention improved quality of acute pain management of older adults hospitalized with a hip fracture.

Implications for implementation science.

Implementing evidence into healthcare practice is essential to maximize the benefits of research and billions of dollars spent generating new knowledge. Implementation science is the investigation of methods, interventions (strategies), and variables to influence adoption of evidence-based healthcare practices by individuals and organizations to improve clinical and operational decision making, and includes testing the effectiveness of interventions to promote and sustain use of evidence-based healthcare practices. Estabrooks and her research team are to be applauded not only for the excellent contributions to the understanding of research utilization but also for setting forth a series of articles to stimulate thinking and comments across national boundaries and lines of inquiry. Described here are the implications for implementation science with regard to conceptual frameworks, measurement issues, and research designs, stimulated by the papers of the Estabrooks investigative team set forth in this special issue.

Acute pain treatment for older adults hospitalized with hip fracture: current nursing practices and perceived barriers.

This article examines acute pain management practices for patients 65 years of age and older who were hospitalized during 1999 for hip fracture. Data were collected from the medical records of patients (N = 709) admitted to 12 hospitals in the Midwest and from questionnaires on pain practices completed by nurses (N = 172) caring for these patients. The major variables examined were (1). pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments for acute pain in hospitalized elders, (2). nurses' perceived stage of adoption for avoiding meperidine use and for administering analgesics around-the-clock, and (3). nurses' perceived barriers to optimal treatment of acute pain in elders. Acetaminophen was the most frequently administered analgesic, but administered doses were far less than the maximum daily recommended dose. More than one third (39%) of the nurses reported that they always avoided the use of meperidine, and over half reporting avoiding its use sometimes. However, the majority of patients (56.8%) received at least one dose of meperidine, even though evidence suggests that other analgesic agents are more appropriate for treatment of acute pain in elders. Only 27% of patients received patient-controlled analgesia, and only 22.3% of patients received around-the-clock administration during the first 24 hours after admission of analgesics that had been ordered on a prn basis. The majority of nurses were aware that around-the-clock administration of analgesics was preferable, but only 33.7% were persuaded (believed) that this method should be used. Intramuscular injection was used for 52.2% of patients, even though this route is not recommended for older adults. The most frequently used nonpharmacological intervention was repositioning, followed by use of pressure relief devices and cold application. Nurses reported difficulty contacting physicians and difficulty communicating with them about type and/or dose of analgesics as the greatest barriers to pain management. Findings from this multi-site study show that active and focused "translation" interventions are needed to promote adoption of evidence-based acute pain management practices by health care providers.