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"The clinical interdisciplinary team is an untapped pool of talent for outcome improvements in hospitals today. They can improve their methods of care if provided with practical tools to analyze the data view the results of their work, and apply the lessons learned from evidence." Lisa Sams 2000
Research is published, guidelines are developed, and medical professionals take hundreds of hours of continuing education courses. Yet the data shows it still takes an average of 17 years for our health systems to bring the best evidence into daily use with patients. (Institute of Medicine, 2001) However, organizations can begin to incorporate current evidence into practice through a combination of diagnostic analysis and research-proven strategies-tailored to the needs of the specific work environment and clinical team.
The Solution - The CWA Blueprint©
The Clinical Work Assessment (CWA) Blueprint© offers clinical teams a practical approach to adopt EBP for a specific practice issue. It essentially maps out the best route to success-including creating strategies that will help overcome inevitable barriers to implementation-using the five key competencies of EBP:
- Learning to ask the right clinical question
- Searching effectively for the evidence
- Critically appraising that evidence
- Applying evidence to improve patient care
- Monitoring and evaluating the outcomes
The CWA Blueprint© recognizes that every organization’s path must be unique-starting with a baseline assessment of current operations your clinical team designs a plan for addressing the barriers to the evidence inherent to that organization.
Download the abstract.
Key Components
When an organization decides to implement the CWA Blueprint©, the clinical team begins constructing the EBP framework through five key steps:
- Baseline assessment of unit culture
- Inventory of staff knowledge and perception of current practice
- Assessment of the gap between current evidence and unit practice
- Creation of an action plan to bridge that gap
- Ongoing monitoring of implementation and outcomes
Tracking progress is key to motivating staff, fostering management support, and-most importantly- keeping the plan on track. That is why the Blueprint includes several tools to help gauge progress: weekly charts so teams can monitor achievement of their short-term goals, monthly "stop light charts" to present the unit’s progress to management, and quarterly evaluations to assess the overall evolution of the unit’s culture and practice.
Case Study
Read about a Clinical Linkages project to establish evidence-based practice for managing pain in pediatric oncology patients: The Challenge of Using Evidence-Based Practice, Journal of Nursing Administration September 2004
Overall, the CWA Blueprint© engineers the best route for your unit to achieve evidence-driven patient care. |
