Inspiring best practice champion program breeds many great ideas

Recently, I participated in a new project that was happening across our hospital for registered nurses. “Best Practice Champion” was a first-of-its-kind initiative by our hospital, funded by HealthForceOntario, and I am very proud to have been a part of it.The main purpose of this project was to integrate best practice into daily clinical care. The role of the best practice champion (BPC) was to field possible improvements related to best practice on each of our individual units in the hospital from our colleagues, registered nurses and allied health professionals. The idea was to have a grassroots movement that would evolve into sustainability, as well develop future projects that would be shared among other units in the hospital.More than 54 nurses worked hard to develop great ideas and projects, with the support and supervision of three change co-ordinators. Here are just some of the projects we worked on:• fall prevention,• improving central venous access device (CVAD) care,• smoking cessation,• improving oral care,• improving pain management,• skin and wound care,• implementing our Care Visibility Technology patient board system, improving Kardexes, and• standardization of infection prevention and control flow of information/resources.As you can see, there was a wide variety of projects that ultimately relate to improving patient care.There was a lot of collaboration between nurses and allied health workers, with unit-based managers and our director of nursing practice. Nurses developed surveys and collected data, which led to the creation of pamphlets, educational booklets/videos, flowcharts, and the list goes on. It was so great to see so many of us working together to better our hospital.It was also a learning opportunity and a great way to develop leadership and presentation skills, as well as how to collaborate with those who resist change (also known as laggards).We also learned that projects do not always develop as planned, and that sometimes one needs to modify the project to fit the situation. The change co-ordinators played a huge role in supporting the ups and downs experienced by each of us. I almost think of us like little ants or bees, working really hard individually collecting food but working together to accomplish something big.I only wished we had more funding and more time so we could continue to sustain and develop new projects. The BPC project commenced in January and ended March 30, which allowed RNs to have 10 shifts to work on their individual project; any future projects will be on our own time. I can only speak for myself when I say I have no issues with that, but others may have different opinions, especially knowing the amount of effort it took to see a project through.I think there is enough fire and excitement among us that we can sustain our current projects, and I know from this experience there are nurses who are already getting involved with more. Chain reactions are happening, and the outcomes of our projects are being presented and shared among the rest of the hospital.I hope that by reading this, you will have an idea that will reveal itself, and that idea can grow into a project to create positive change.Philiz Goh is a Toronto nurse and graduate of the accelerated nursing program from the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.

Inspiring best practice champion program breeds many great ideas

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Philiz Goh