RWJF announces another round of nurse-led innovation

Last week the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced this year's participants in its fascinating TCAB program. TCAB (Transforming Care at the Bedside) emphasizes developing nurse-lead patient safety innovations, such as falls prevention programs, or the use of white boards for patient goals. The rationale is that "nurses and other frontline staff are uniquely capable of identifying and implementing process improvements that could result in safer, more reliable care." I like it. :) Sixteen hospitals have been selected to participate, meaning that for the next year med/surg nurses at those hospitals on certain units will be developing, implementing, and testing new patient safety measures with RWJ's support.

Although no local hospitals are participating this year, North Shore Long Island Jewish, the hospital network behemoth, has participated in the past. One of their innovations was "rapid response" teams, an idea gaining popularity in hospitals across the country. The idea behind rapid response teams is to take serious, but pre-critical (ie, they're not coding yet), patient conditions and address them as quickly as possible. At Long Island, the rapid response team yielded a lower number of actual codes, and the hospital reported an improvement in "early assessment" skills. Another innocation was a standardized assessment tool that facilitated clearer physician/nurse communication when a patient's condition is worsening.

The RWJF is incredibly active in supporting nursing in the United States. Last month it created a coalition with the AARP's affiliated charity, the AARP Foundation, to address the nursing shortage, which is projected to worsen over the next several years as more and more nurses retire. The coalition, which includes health care providers, consumer organizations, and businesses, will also seek funding to improve nurse education, job satisfaction, and retention. The RWJF has worked with the AARP and the Department of Labor to address the nursing shortage in the past, and even offers $10,000 scholarships for student nurses, especially those from groups that are underrepresented in nursing or from disadvantaged backgrounds.