Collaborating to Start an Online Nursing Research Journal Club

1. Nursing Research Committee Library IT Department Collaborating to Start an Online Nursing Research Journal Club Rose Campbell, MLIS, MS, AHIP, Medical Librarian; Sherrie Schuldheis, PhD, RN, Director, Nursing Research; Christine Valdez, RN, MN, CNS, CNOR. VA Medical Center Library, Portland, OR. Collaboration Barriers to Utilization of a Traditional Face-to- Face Journal Club Time • Nurses often don’t have free time to attend the meeting when it is scheduled, even if they may have downtime during other times during their shifts • Night shift nurses are simply not on site during the regularly scheduled journal club meetings Space • Nurses may have down time, but are unable to leave the patient’s bedside during the scheduled nursing journal club meetings • Because of scheduling, nurses may be off during the traditional nursing journal club meetings • Nurses at remote clinic sites may be interested in journal club topics, but are unable to come to the main hospital for the journal club meetings Intervention In order to lower spatial and temporal barriers, the Nursing Research Committee along with the library and the hospital’s IT department, is developing an online nursing journal club. By offering synchronous and asynchronous interaction, the online nursing research journal club can be integrated with the traditional meetings to allow nurses to participate remotely both during and after the face-to-face journal club meeting. Outcomes . . . so far The nursing research journal club has a website on the hospital’s intranet Background and Setting The Portland VA Medical Center (PVAMC) is a 303-bed consolidated facility and serves as referral center for Oregon, Southern Washington, and parts of Idaho. The medical center is comprised of the main hospital in Portland, OR, as well as clinics in Vancouver, WA; Portland, OR; Salem, OR; Bend, OR and Warrenton, OR. The PVAMC is one of only three VA Hospitals nationwide to have achieved the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) Nursing Magnet Hospital status. The PVAMC’s Nursing Research Committee (NRC) was instrumental in the hospital achieving magnet status. One of the goals of the NRC’s continuing strategic plan is to enhance evidence based nursing practice. One of the first steps to increasing evidence based practice among nurses is to train them to find, read, critically appraise and use nursing research. In an effort to enhance nurses’ skill in these areas the Nursing Research Committee instituted a journal club to help prepare nurses for evidence based practice. More to come . . . • Integration with face-to-face journal club meetings using MeetingPlace • More content on Nursing Research Journal Club webpage: canned PubMed searches on hot topics, RSS content, interactive research evaluation tools such as online polls, and more! • Promotion and testing of online nursing journal club . . . creating an online community • Evaluation References Luby M, Riley JK, Towne G. Nursing research journal clubs: Bridging the gap between practice and research. MEDSURG Nursing. 2006;15: 100-102. McCleary L, Brown GT. Barriers to paediatric nurses' research utilization. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2003;42:364-372. Olade RA. Attitudes and factors affecting research utilization. Nursing Forum. 2003;38: 5-15. Parkes J, Hyde C, Deeks J, Milne R. Teaching critical appraisal skills in health care settings. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2001;(3):CD001270. Phillips RS, Glasziou P. What makes evidence-based journal clubs succeed. ACP Journal Club. 2004;140:A11-A12. Pravikoff DS, Tanner AB, Pierce ST. Readiness of U.S. nurses for evidence-based practice: Many don't understand or value research and have had little or no training to help them find evidence on which to base their practice. American Journal of Nursing. 2005;105:40-52. St. Pierre J. Changing nursing practice through a nursing journal club. MEDSURG Nursing. 2005;14:390-392. Platforms Considered • Free, Hosted Wiki site such as Wikispace • WebEx • SharePoint • MeetingPlace • VA’s Content Distribution Network (CDN) • NetMeeting • Blackboard • WebCT Platform Selected • SharePoint (for discussion board and document posting) • MeetingPlace (for live meeting interaction and capture) Lessons of Collaboration • Scheduling: coordinating with many busy people makes it difficult to schedule meetings; the process may take longer than expected. • Nurse Staffing: nurses primary focus is patient care. Nurses are staffed at a level such that if there is somebody out sick, secondary activities get re-scheduled. • The IT department is not a single point of contact: be sure to talk to many different people to get the entire picture. What might be recommended as a solution by a webmaster may not be a good idea from a security viewpoint. • Get people invested in the project, not yourself: get people excited about the project, then you can frame requests as “this project needs your valuable input” rather than “I need your help”. • Patience and persistence are essential. Step one: Identify a platform: Desired Features • Ability to post articles • Discussion board • Integration with face-to-face meeting • Ability to record, post, and playback a live meeting Potential Issues • Security Issues • Does the platform require a server? • Is there server space available? • Does the platform cost money? • Is the platform already licensed by the organization? • Ease of use And an online discussion forum with ability to post articles