Nurses’ Experiences on Staffing Committees: Recommended Reading in AJN’s February Issue

The February issue of AJN is now live.

“Original Research: A Real ‘Voice’ or ‘Lip Service’? Experiences of Staff Nurses Who Have Served on Staffing Committees,” explores nurses’ perspectives on staffing committee participation—including how they perceive their committee’s effectiveness, and how these committees can benefit patients, nurses, and organizations.

In this month’s CE article, “Our Journey to Pass a Surgical Plume Evacuation Law,” the authors describe their experience leading a grassroots coalition to address surgical plume evacuation in Illinois, and outline strategies nurses can apply to their own advocacy efforts.

New series! “Cultivating an Evidence-Based Decision-Making Mindset,” the first article in a new series on how to teach and facilitate learning about evidence-based practice and quality improvement, offers educators the content and tools needed to prepare nurses to be evidence-based decision-makers.

Read “Improving the Timing of Acute Care Insulin Delivery” to learn about an initiative to reduce both time to insulin delivery and percentage of bedtime insulin doses withheld.

See also the extensive health care news sections, the Journal Watch and Drug Watch sections, an editorial on Black nurses’ contributions to health care, a Viewpoint column on empowering NPs […]

2024-01-25T13:11:25-05:00January 25th, 2024|Nursing|0 Comments

Implementation Science: Systematic, Sustainable, Evidence-Based Change

By Cagkan/Adobe Stock

Reading the article by Russell-Babin and colleagues in the December 2023 issue of AJN made me grateful for all the work that went into developing the nursing implementation science (IS) program at Inova. As a nurse working at this health care system, I’d like to share how I benefited from being in the first cohort of nurses trained and engaged in IS over the last three years.

For the past eight years, I’ve been a clinical coordinator of two different disease-specific programs—first stroke and now sepsis. In these roles, I’ve been engaged in many different quality improvement (QI) projects and have become familiar with the tools and processes used to improve patient care and outcomes.

Towards more comprehensive and systematic evidence-based change.

However, as I was invited to step into the world of IS, I began to realize that a strict QI approach cannot alone bring about all the changes we desire within the complex systems of health care. The fact is that […]

2024-01-11T10:06:42-05:00January 11th, 2024|Nursing, nursing roles, Quality improvement|1 Comment

Revisiting Evidence-Based Practice, and ‘Making Change Stick’

Do you ever wonder why nurses engage in practices that aren’t supported by evidence, while not implementing practices substantiated by a lot of evidence? In the past, nurses changed hospitalized patients’ IV dressings daily, even though no solid evidence supported this practice. When clinical trials finally explored how often to change IV dressings, results indicated that daily changes led to higher rates of phlebitis than did less frequent changes.

That’s the beginning of the first article in our first “step by step” series, Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step, launched in November 2009. It won the Nursing Print Media Award for Nursing Excellence from Sigma Theta Tau International; the 12 articles in the series continue to be among the most highly viewed of any AJN articles online.

Nurses know about EBP, but changing practice is another thing.

The continued popularity of the articles made us wonder if the tenets of EBP were still not adequately known by nurses. So we asked the experts, and the result is our new series, EBP 2.0: Implementing and Sustaining Change.

Sharon Tucker, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Lynn Gallagher-Ford, PhD, RN, NE-BC, DPFNAP, FAAN, both  at the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare at the Ohio State University College […]

April Issue: IV Patient-Controlled Analgesia Errors, Implementing EBP, Nurses and Climate Action, More

“Think about your own workplace: do you take pride in what you do, feel that you and your work are valued, and enjoy the team you work with? Do the good days outweigh the bad days?”—AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her April editorial

The April issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

CE: Original Research: Errors in Postoperative Administration of Intravenous Patient-Controlled Analgesia: A Retrospective Study

The authors describe and analyze the errors associated with the use of IV patient-controlled analgesia at a large medical center in South Korea.

CE: A Historical Review of Nurse–Physician Bedside Rounding

How has the nurse’s role in bedside rounding evolved since the 19th century? This article discusses the challenges of nurse participation in bedside rounding from 1873 to 1973.

Sustaining Nursing Grand Rounds Through Interdisciplinary Teamwork and Interorganizational Partnership

The authors present the implementation of a grand rounds program at their naval hospital, and demonstrate how nursing grand rounds can support professional growth and strengthen partnerships.

New Series: EBP 2.0: Implementing and Sustaining Change: From Strategy to Implementation

Our follow-up to the popular Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step series (which appeared in AJN from 2009 to 2011) is focused on the most challenging of the seven EBP steps—implementation.

Environments […]

2019-03-25T09:53:59-04:00March 25th, 2019|Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments

May Issue: Transfusion Therapy, Sustaining Fall Prevention Programs, Nurses’ Role in Assisted Suicide, More

“Nursing students are the future of nursing. Treating them with anything less than respect, support, and nurturing is unacceptable and unprofessional.” —John Burkley, MSN, RN, author of this month’s Viewpoint

The May issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: Original Research: Exploring Clinicians’ Perceptions About Sustaining an Evidence-Based Fall Prevention Program

Although hospitals have made extensive efforts to reduce patient falls through evidence-based fall prevention programs, sustaining such programs has proven challenging. This qualitative study addresses the knowledge gap between implementing and sustaining evidence-based fall prevention practices for hospitalized patients.

CE: A Review of Current Practice in Transfusion Therapy

The authors review the blood products that are commonly transfused, discuss the potential complications of transfusion—including TACO, TRALI, and TRIM—and outline current recommendations for transfusion therapy.

Special Feature: Assisted Suicide/Aid in Dying: What Is the Nurse’s Role?

This article presents the panel discussion that occurred during a policy dialogue on aid in dying (AID) at the American Academy of Nursing’s annual conference in 2016. The discussion explored the arguments for and against the growing state expansion of AID legislation, and the role of nurses in assisting patients who request […]

2018-04-27T09:18:27-04:00April 27th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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