The purpose of this assessment is to understand where to find evidence that can be applied to clinical scenarios and to learn effective communication and collaboration with clinical staff during the process of evidence location. As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, you will not only use research for self-improvement in your clinical role, but you will also serve as a mentor to supervised nursing staff. Therefore, you will need to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively to guide them toward resources to find research, as well as support them through the initial evidence location process. In doing so, nurses can gain access to evidence that can be analyzed and utilized to stay current on best practices. This allows them to provide safe, patient-centered care and improve patient outcomes.
For this assessment:
- Describe your role as a baccalaureate-prepared nurse supervising clinical staff nurses with regard to communication and collaboration in locating evidence for application to a nursing practice scenario.
- Compile a list of five online databases or other online sources (that is, websites, journals, facility policies or guidelines, et cetera) that can be used to research evidence to apply to the diagnosis in this scenario and describe to which of these you would direct a nurse colleague to search for evidence.
- Describe where you might go in the work place to complete this research and how you would access the desired, relevant research within research databases or other online sources.
Be sure to address the following in this assessment, which correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so that you will know what is needed for a distinguished score.
- Describe communication strategies to encourage nurses to research the diagnosis/practice issue, as well as strategies to collaborate with the nurses to access resources.
- Describe the best places to complete research and what types of resources you would want to access to find pertinent information for the diagnosis/health care issue within the context of a specific health care setting.
- Identify five sources of online information (medical journal databases, websites, hospital policy databases, et cetera) that could be used to locate evidence for a clinical diagnosis/practice issue.
- Explain why the sources of online information selected should provide the best evidence for the chosen diagnosis/health care issue.
- Communicate using writing that is clear, logical, and professional with correct grammar and spelling using current APA style.
Note: While you are not selecting and evaluating specific evidence to help with the clinical diagnosis/practice issue, you should still be citing the literature and best practices to support your description of your communication and collaboration approach. Additionally, it is appropriate to cite best practices related to EBP and evaluating databases to support your explanation as to why you selected the five sources of online information that you did.
Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like: