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| Lianne Jeffs |
“I’m a geek,” admits Lianne Jeffs, PhD, RN, director of nursing and clinical research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. This quality seems to work in her favor. In May, she received the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Rising Star Award.
Jeffs won this prestigious national award for her Research Advancing Practice (RAP) program, a knowledge translation initiative that gives nurses an opportunity to do relevant research that encourages reflective practice. Ultimately, she believes, the program will improve health care.
“If nurses are involved with the research process, chances are they will be more reflective in their practice,” she explains. “They’ll be able to provide safer care, because they are more satisfied and more knowledgeable.”
After arriving at the downtown Toronto hospital five years ago, Jeffs learned that nurses wanted to engage in research. Knowing that they have key questions that can change patient care, Jeffs wanted to give them an opportunity to do research that mattered. Alongside colleagues, she developed an 18-month curriculum that provides content and opportunity for experiential learning whereby staff nurses were matched with a research mentor to conduct a research study. Staff nurses were given protected time to participate in the RAP program—thanks to endorsement from Ella Ferris, MBA, RN, executive vice president of programs and chief nurse executive at St. Michael's.
Jeffs knew that some nurses might be hesitant. “Nurses think [research] is for people in the academic world,” she said in a video interview with Rob Fraser, BScN, RN, posted on his Nursing Ideas website. She is changing their viewpoint, helping them see the importance of research, whether they are conducting the research or using it.
“The big joke at the hospital is, don’t make eye contact with me, or you’ll want a PhD.”The first cohort of nurses applied to the RAP program in 2006 and proposed their ideas. After a committee selected participants, the research began. Advanced practice nurses and bedside staff nurses worked together. “I thought it was important to have as many staff nurses as possible in this program—the principal investigator had to be a staff nurse,” Jeffs says.
The research topic can be anything from a safety issue to a recurring phenomenon that the nurses wanted to evaluate. “We choose simple-scope projects that are feasible and relevant to nursing practice," she says.
Topics have included core issues in nursing practice and patient care, such as using restraints safely and preventing medication errors in the emergency department. Other research projects have taken more unusual directions—for example, testing whether sucking on a piece of sugar-free candy can relieve the persistent thirst of diabetic patients undergoing dialysis.
At the end of the program, RAP teams present their findings at a symposium, translating their knowledge with posters and oral presentations. Teams have also presented results to other hospitals and Canadian policy panels. They hope to publish their findings, to encourage change within the health care system. A significant number of nurses from RAP teams have gone on to pursue master’s or doctoral degrees, demonstrating the career development element of the program.
“The big joke at the hospital is, don’t make eye contact with me, or you’ll want a PhD,” Jeffs adds with a laugh.
She reports that findings from the two completed rotations of RAP studies are “captivating people” at St. Michael’s. So far, she estimates the program has affected about one-third of the 1,600 nurses at the urban Toronto hospital, with only 60 participants working directly with the program. RAP participants have disseminated information to other nurses and medical professionals at the hospital, and nurses have become more aware of their practice.
Jeffs has seen similar programs, but believes RAP is uniquely tailored to staff nurses understanding and applying research into their daily practice. “The integrated curriculum and release time for nurses to actually do the research are really critical,” she says, citing the mentorship and symposium presentations. She is currently creating a toolkit, so other organizations can easily replicate the program in their hospitals. The next rotation begins with advanced practice nurses in fall 2010.
Since coming to St. Michael’s Hospital, Jeffs has come a long way in the research field. Winning the Rising Star Award has been a significant honor for her. “It’s a great award to have been given—not just for me, but for nursing,” she says.
Jeffs will continue mentoring graduate students in upcoming years. “You really have a moral obligation, in my view, … to role model and mentor others.”
She believes in empowering others through research.
“When people begin to understand how important research is and how an inquiring mind does not have to accept status quo, then maybe, just maybe, we can look critically at what we are doing in practice and use research to understand our phenomenon appropriately,” Jeffs says, not sounding geeky at all. RNL
Erin Pesut served an editorial internship in the publications department at the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. She will graduate in December from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
Reference:
Research Advancing Practice, Part I. (2010, April 21). In Nursing Ideas. Retrieved 29 July 2010 from http://nursingideas.ca/2009/04/research-advancing-practice-part-i/
