You will write a report that is approximately 2 to 2.5 pages (single spaced, approximately 1000-1250 words). Your intended audience is the director of the trauma surgery department for a large hospital system.
Make sure to provide a title and to write your name as the report’s author. No separate title page is necessary for this short work. It is reasonable to provide reference information for this paper in your report. No citations to additional works are required.
Specific Questions
In your summary, be sure to address the following questions:
- Why would the hospital benefit from adding nurse practitioners to the care team in the trauma department?
- How did this study’s methods of conducting the research differ from a more idealized design? Why did the researchers make this choice of design for this study?
- What did the study say about the effect of utilizing nurse practitioners on the length of hospital stay, quality of care, and impact on the care team?
- Based on the study’s conclusions, what recommendations would you provide the intended audience of your report?
Structure of the Paper
The research review will include 3 parts:
Part 1 Summary – 1-1.5 pages (500-750 words):
Your paper should be structured as a narrative in paragraph form. Be sure to address all four of the specific questions, but do not answer them in bullet points, incomplete sentences, or in a disjointed manner. Instead, work on creating a story that introduces and explains the work coherently. This document should be comprehensible to other people in your intended audience (both technical and non-technical).
Part 2 Discussion of Dr. Shuk’s Commentary – 1-2 paragraphs (Max 250 words):
The discussion after the article includes this comment from Dr. Jerry M. Shuck:
“Third, there may be cost benefits, but from me this paper was less clear. The decrease in length of stay by nearly a day, however, has not convinced me that this was due to the nurse practitioner team alone. Historical controls just don’t make the case.”
Is this a valid point? Even with an observational study, what kind of analysis would better help quantify the estimated benefit of the nurse practitioners’ work? Provide your explanation. (Do not include the above quotation in your paper.)
Part 3 Research Question Design & Meaningful Effect Size – 1 paragraph:
The research paper does not directly state its research questions. Design a research question that could be used before this study took place to frame the investigation of the nurse practitioner program. Here, we will focus on the dependent variable of the length of stay in the hospital. Make sure the revised question includes a clear definition of the population, independent and dependent variables, a comparison of treatments, a metric of performance, and a definition of improvement. Then, state and justify an opinion on the smallest change in the metric that would represent a meaningful improvement. Because research questions are formulated before running the study, do not use the study’s results as the basis for your choice. However, you can use the study’s background information as a starting point for your own choice.