Benchmark evidence-based practice implementation in nursing journals

Evidence-Based Practice

Hauck, Winsett and Kuric (2013) published "Leadership facilitation strategies to establish evidence-based practice in an acute care hospital" in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. The focus of this article is the role that leadership plays in the implementation of evidence-based practice. They note that there are three ways in which leadership can support the implementation of evidence-based practices. They can implement evidence-based practices in the strategic plan. They can support and mentor people within the organization, and lastly they can provide the resources for the education of the workforce. The authors found that when these interventions were implemented, "total group scores for beliefs and organizational readiness improved significantly" (Hauck, Winsett, Kuric, 2013, p.664).

Summary of Key Points

The authors noted that nurses outperformed other role types in this area. Thus, one of the key elements of nursing implementation is that the nursing leadership in the organization needs to prioritize the use of evidence-based practice. When this occurs, the nursing leadership will provide the resources necessary to ensure that the nurses are aware of what evidence-based practice is, and how it can result in improved performance and patient outcomes. Moreover, leadership plays a critical role in developing mentorship programs, where senior nurses will be able to help more junior nurses with the implementation of evidence-based practice. The authors make the point that the implementation of evidence-based practice works best when it is done top-down. Leadership needs to make EBP ingrained in the organizaiotn. When leadership uses EBP in its strategic planning, provides resources and structures for its implementation throughout the organization, including support at the nurse leadership level, then this will be successful.

List of Steps

1. Identify the sources of evidence

2. Study the evidence, absorbing conclusions and thinking about how they apply to your organization

3. Incorporating the evidence into the strategic plan

4. Building a training program to communicate the new evidence and its implications to the nursing leaders, and from there to the workforce

5. Establish mentorship programs to ensure that there is adequate support for the new EBP

6. Conduct a review subsequent to implementation to evaluate the success of the implementation, including on patient outcomes

Application of Information Learned

An example of how this can be applied is with the implementation of electronic medical records. In many organizations, the use of EMR is relatively new, but there is a growing body of evidence that discusses the successes and risk factors for the use of EMR. As the body of evidence grows, it should be incorporated into nursing practice. At my facility, this would mean that nursing leadership should ensure that what evidence provides valuable information about safeguards, or opportunities to use EMR to improve patient outcomes, that leadership is willing to adapt the strategy plan in order to accommodate this. Then, if there are changes in the strategic plan, or in tactics, these need to be communicated. There will also need to be training that accompanies these changes. The most important takeaway from the article is that not only is leadership support for EBP essential, but that the support should be multi-faceted in nature, from the strategic plan right down to ensuring that there are methods for the day-to-day applications of evidence-based practice to be implemented by all nurses.