NURS 350 Week 7 Discussion Research in Nursing
NURS 350 Week 7 Discussion Research in Nursing
NURS 350 Week 7 Discussion Research in Nursing
How would you critically use research to resolve a discrepancy between professional standards and actual practice observed within your facility?
Healthcare research continually produces large amounts of results and revised methods of treatment and care for patients, which, if implemented in practice, can potentially save lives and improve the quality of life of patients [1]. Nonetheless, a rise in the amount of research results available does not automatically translate into improved patient care and treatment [2, 3].
There is broad evidence that there is a substantial gap between the healthcare that patients receive and the practice that is recommended – also known as the research-practice gap, evidence-practice-gap or knowing-doing gap [4–6]. Evidence suggests that it sometimes takes more than a decade to implement research results in clinical practice, and that it is often difficult to sustain innovations over time [7, 8]. This is critical, not only for patients, who thereby fail to receive the best treatment and care available, but also for healthcare organizations and society, who miss out on the potential financial value gains and returns on investment [9, 10].
Implementation Science is the mail field of research dedicated to exploring methods of implementing research evidence into practice [11, 12]. Many studies within this field explore methods to promote integration of research findings by policymaking and through larger, systematic and planned implementation initiatives such as e.g. Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (CFIR) [13]. Fewer studies unfold whether and how research results seems to wander into practice in a less structured, planned and top down manner through local, emerging and personally carried mechanisms.
Within the field of translational science (the translation of new clinical knowledge into improved health) studies suggesting methods for bridging the gap between research and practice [14] mainly focus on exploring implementation methods capable of promoting the exchange, transfer, diffusion and dissemination of evidence-based knowledge to practitioners and decision-makers in healthcare systems [14]. Journal clubs are similarly a widespread dissemination method for clinicians to access evidence-based knowledge through presentations and discussions of research articles [15]. What these approaches have in common is a focus on how to convey evidence-based information to healthcare professionals, and thereby raise awareness of relevant improvements in treatment and care. A large body of research nonetheless suggests that it is difficult for professionals to utilize new, decontextualized, explicit knowledge in their daily work practice [16–18]. What directs the professional’s actions in practice will often be the implicit and established know-how of routines– even when decisions on new methods and the commitment to put them into practice is otherwise present [19–21].
In line with these insights, translational methods have been shown to produce only small to moderate effects, and research suggests that the successful uptake of research results in the actions of healthcare professionals requires more than merely making the results accessible for local practice [3, 22, 23].
Recent research suggests that evidence-informed practice is mediated by an interplay between the individuals, the new knowledge and the actual context in which the evidence is to be operationalized and utilized in daily practice [24, 25]. Organizational contextual factors such as culture and leadership, but also social and attitudinal factors as professional opinion has shown to have a great impact on implementation success [12, 26, 27]. In this perspective, new research results are not transferred on a 1:1 basis from academia to practice. Instead, the applicability of research results must be locally evaluated, and new results must eventually be made actionable and utilizable, and adapted to local practice, in order to produce the desired outcome over time [22, 23, 27–29].
Deepening our understanding of the factors which prohibit or promote this interplay in local practice and the operationalization and use of research results in daily clinical life is vital in order to bridge the continuing gap between healthcare research and practice [30, 31].
The objective of this study is to elucidate how healthcare professionals in a hospital setting experienced working with the implementation of research results in practice, and which existing methods they utilized to incorporate research results into daily healthcare action.