Winter 2005 ONP Newsletter

RNAO Nursing Best Practice Guidelines go national

In late November 2003, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) sought to broaden the dissemination and uptake of its nursing Best Practice Guidelines (BPG) to all provinces and territories in Canada . The response of nurses to this effort has been phenomenal! This initiative was comprised of three components, each one now successfully completed:

• hosting best practice workshops entitled Shaping the Future of Nursing in Canada
• translation into French of five nursing BPGs, 12 Health Education Fact Sheets (HEFS) and a toolkit entitled Implementation of Clinical Practice Guidelines; and
• partnerships with two Best Practice Spotlight Organizations outside of Ontario.

RNAO planned and conducted 20 full-day, free workshops in 17 locations across Canada in February and March of this year. Over 1,000 nurses attended these sessions and an additional 1,400 nurses were on a waiting list. Five nurse educators and advanced practice nurses were trained in Toronto to conduct these workshops in both official languages.

Each workshop described the nursing BPGs program and shared the work done by RNAO over the past five years. The guidelines and other related materials were shared along with tools for guideline implementation. The target audience included nurses who viewed themselves as change agents and were passionate about raising the quality of care in their organizations. The attendees included staff nurses, managers, clinical specialists, educators, senior leaders, and other stakeholders. RNAO believes the workshops assisted in highlighting the knowledge component of the nursing profession and acted as a catalyst for action in the implementation of best practices across Canada .

In order to ensure accessibility of the BPG and HEFS to French-speaking nurses and patients, the following documents and resources in high demand were translated and are now available electronically and in print format:

• Établissement de la relation thérapeutique (Establishing Therapeutic Relationships);
• Évaluation du risque et prévention des lésions de pression (Risk Assessment and Prevention of Pressure Ulcers);
• Évaluation et prise en charge de la douleur (Assessment and Management of Pain);
• Évaluation et traitement des lésions de pression de stades 1 à 4 (Assessment and Management of Stage I to IV Pressure Ulcers );
• Soins axés sur les besoins du client (Client Centred Care) ; and
• Trousse sur la marche à suivre: mise en place des lignes directrices pour la pratique clinique (Toolkit: Implementation of Clinical Practice Guidelines).

All 12 HEFS are now available in French. The complete list of HEFS, as well as additional translated guidelines and nursing BPG program information, is available on the RNAO website at: Nursing Best Practice Guidelines. All documents can be downloaded free or ordered using the online order form or faxable form.

The third aspect of this national project involved expanding the Ontario Best Practice Spotlight Organization initiative to include two organizations in Quebec . The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Hôpital Charles LeMoyne have demonstrated strategic vision in creating a knowledge-based practice environment and a commitment to implementing multiple BPGs over time.

From the experience of these three initiatives, RNAO concludes that there is great readiness across the country for a concerted effort to provide supports for day-to-day clinical practice issues. RNAO strongly urges governments at all levels to invest generously in implementing knowledge-based clinical practice through the active implementation of the nursing BPGs.