Generations of nurses join forces to improve health care in Franklin County
A collaboration between the current and next generation of nurses aims to improve the quality of health care being offered now and in the future.
Penn State Mont Alto and WellSpan Waynesboro Hospital are working together to incorporate evidence-based practices into the care at the hospital and the nursing curriculum at the local university campus.
Evidence-based practice aims to combine the best information and research with nurses’ expertise and experience, while also factoring in patients’ circumstances.
Traditional interventions do not always work, and new information is constantly available, said Assistant Teaching Professor Stephanie Unger.
“We have to be able to integrate this information to improve the quality of patient care,” said Unger, Ph.D., RN. “Nursing care needs to be continuously improved for the benefit of all clients.”
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During a workshop at the Penn State campus on Jan. 30, volunteer registered nurses and nurse leaders from Waynesboro Hospital were trained in the evidence-based practice process. Going forward, they will work with junior students in a nursing research class, and students will also learn about evidence-based practices in separate classes.
Unger, who is also a certified nurse educator, and Tom Reinsfelder, head librarian at Penn State Mont Alto, helped the nurses practice skills such as clinical question formation and acquisition of biomedical evidence from literature, then taught them how to incorporate that information into patient care.
Moving forward, Reinsfelder will help nurses and students acquire resources, knowledge and strategies to support their efforts to further evidence-based practices.
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Teams of two registered nurses and three student nurses are working on projects throughout the spring semester. With supervision by faculty, nurses and students will learn together and create evidence-based practices to use in the real world of nursing.
Unger and Reinsfelder spearheaded the collaboration, while Melissa Dick, director of patient services for WellSpan Waynesboro Hospital, helped recruit volunteer nurses and steered the partnership from the clinical side.
The pilot project is partially sponsored by the Pennsylvania State University Mont Alto Campus Alumni Society, College of Nursing Outreach Program and the PSMA Office of Academic Affairs.
Unger hopes to expand the program in the future. For more information, email her at ssp13@psu.edu.