Nurses and Librarians: Searching for Excellence Together

1. Nurses and Librarians: Searching for Excellence Together Susan Keller, MLS & Mary O’Neill Kinler, MS, APRN, BC, FNP Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC Methodology: Taking the Library to the Nurses Opportunities and Challenges: Searching for Excellence Results Five training sessions were held on the nursing units during 2003-2004. Sixteen nurses (N=16; 27% of the RCU and NOCU staff nurses participated. The focus of the classes was to teach nurses how to search the literature using the on-line databases. A review of CINAHL (Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature) statistics at CNMC indicates an increase in CINAHL use: Limitations: The increase in CINAHL usage may be the result of factors other than the increased training. In addition, CINAHL usage is not limited to nursing staff. • Opportunity: Nurses at all levels of the organization are being asked to incorporate research findings into their practice. • Challenge: “Too little time”—Strategies are needed that allow nurses to keep up with research and still be able to perform patient care. • Opportunity: Peer-reviewed, high-quality resources are available to nursing staff. • Challenge: “Too much information”--A massive amount of health information is available, and not all of it is peer-reviewed and of high quality. In addition, many nurses do not know how to access these resources. • Opportunity: The CNMC Medical Library provides frequent classes on how to find quality peer-reviewed information. • Challenge:  Nurses rarely attend these classes due to being unable to leave their units for extended periods of time. • Solution: • Bring the library • to the nurses! • Beginning in late 2003, Mary Kinler, Advanced Practice Specialist (APS) for the Respiratory Care Unit (RCU), and Catherine Jacobsen, manager of the Neuro-Ortho Care Unit (NOCU), invited Susan Keller, medical librarian, to come to the nursing units and demonstrate how nurses could find articles using the library databases on their units. Ms. Keller provided a series of inservices on these units. • The APS and manager used creative means to encourage staff participation—including: • Planning group classes with the medical librarian in the units’ nurses’ lounges and promoted them to the units’ nursing staffs; • Scheduling one to one inservices with the medical librarian for nurses who were unable to attend the group sessions; • Encouraging practice on doing literature searches, including printing evidence-based journal articles; • Providing refreshments • The Medical Librarian made the sessions user-friendly by: • Providingopen-ended learning sessions (i.e., staff nurses stopped by within a block of time); • Providing inservices at convenient times for nurses, including an evening session; • Demonstratinghow to use the databases on the units’ computers to search for evidence-based literature; • Providing handouts on how to search the literature, focusing on using the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Next Steps • In order to address the logistical difficulties and make sure that the library resources are available to all nurses, nurse managers are working with the IT (Information Technology) staff to make sure that all of the computers on the units can be used to access the Intranet. This access is part of magnet status compliance. • Librarians, the nursing staff, and IT staff are working together to develop online modules that nurses can access at their convenience in order to learn how to use the library resources. • The librarians have been working to publicize the fact that nurses have 24-hour access to the library. We will continue to monitor the CINAHL usage statistics to see if the trend continues upward. References Conclusion Burstein JL, Hollander JE, Barlas D, "Enhancing the value of journal club: use of a structured review instrument", American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 1996 October; 14(6) 561-3 Carlson DS, "Critiquing nursing research: A user -friendly guide for the staff nurse", Journal of Emergency Nursing, 1999 August; 25 (4), 330-332 Cogdill K, "Information needs and information seeking in primary care: a study of nurse practitioners", Journal of the Medical Library Association, 2003 Apr;91(2):203-15. Hamric, AB, "Dealing with the knowledge explosion", Clinical Nurse Specialist, 2002 March;16 (2): 68-69 Johnson JF, Reineck C, Daigle-Bjerk A, Goupil NM, Captain C, "Understanding research articles: a pilot study of critical reading of research publications", Journal of Nursing Staff Development, 1995 Mar-Apr; 11(2): 95-9 Klapper S, "A tool to educate, critique, and improve practice", AORN J, 2001 Nov;74(5):712-5. Nolf B "Journal club: A tool for continuing education", Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, September/October 1995; 26(5): 238-239 Seymour B, Kinn S, Sutherland N, "Valuing both critical and creative thinking in clinical practice" Narrowing the research-practice gap?" Journal of Advanced Nursing, May 2003; 42 (3): 288-296 Speers AT, " Practical innovations:An Introduction to nursing research through an OR nursing journal club", AORN J,1999 Jun; 69 (6): 1232, 1235-1236 Wozar JA, Worona PC, "The use of online information resources by nurses", Journal of the Medical Library Association", 2003 April; 91 (2):216-21 The partnership between nurses and librarians is a productive one. One of the major challenges faced by both the nursing staff and the librarians is the difficulty in scheduling training sessions that are convenient for the staff nurses. Creative approaches to meeting the needs of the nursing staff should be further explored.