As the academic year came to a close, master’s students presented their Knowledge Translation (KT) and research projects at two separate Graduate Student Symposiums attended by their peers, nursing faculty, and clinical and research supervisors. “The calibre of the presentations was outstanding,” noted Lynne McVey, Director Ingram School of Nursing. Below, we highlight one of the KT projects presented on April 15th.
When Advanced Nursing master’s students Erica Bugarin and Zoe Krochenski were assigned to digital health, they could not have imagined that they would play a small but important role in facilitating one of Quebec’s most innovative digital health projects. Specifically, their efforts helped support the implementation of the new process of charting patients’ vital signs electronically as part of the Jewish General Hospital’s Connected Health Record (CHR). “Our role was to create a toolkit so that super users – nurses who are resource experts and play a critical role in CHR adoption - could feel supported and ready to help other nurses on the unit get on board with this new process,” Zoe explains.
As part of the Jewish General Hospital’s digital health transformation which began in 2020, the CHR is an ambitious and complex multi-year patient-centered project designed to connect all data points in one centralized digital medical record. Once the project is completed, healthcare staff across the Jewish General Hospital and the CIUSSS Centre-ouest de l’Ile de Montréal will have prompt access to all health-related data in a single digital platform, thereby saving time, improving workflow and the patient-care experience.
Zoe and Erica were assigned to K-10, the Neurosciences inpatient unit chosen as the pilot unit for the implementation of electronic vital signs charting. Under the guidance of a team of clinicians, administrators, and information technology specialists, they set about creating a superuser toolkit that would reflect local needs and concerns. The comprehensive toolkit includes role clarity, responsibilities and boundaries, examples of teaching strategies and learning styles, communication pathways and a directory of who to contact for additional support. “We even developed our own problem-solving framework super-users can employ to respond to possible resistance while helping nurses troubleshoot different challenges,” Erica says. The pair also benefitted from strong communication with and support from the hospital’s change management team. This meant for example, that their toolkit is available directly on the CHR desktop, making it easily accessible to all super-users, day or night. To generate additional enthusiasm during the two-week “go live” adaptation period, Zoe and Erica created and distributed super-user t-shirts and lanyards.
As they reviewed the literature and worked on creating the toolkit for the unit’s super-users, Zoe and Erica quickly identified the need for two additional toolkits – one for project leaders, and another for unit managers and nurse educators. “We felt it was important to address the needs of managers on the team specifically with knowledge as to how they can support the super-users by, for example, giving them a lighter patient load during the go-live period, freeing up some of their time so that they would be available to train the nurses on the unit and troubleshoot problems,” Zoe notes.
After the electronic vital signs project went live on K-10, 88% of the superusers who responded to a survey about the toolkit rated it positively. Management at the Jewish General Hospital was equally impressed, judging by their comments following Zoe and Erica’s presentation of their project at the KT Graduate Students Symposium, held on the McGill Campus on April 15th. “We are thrilled with the results! As CHR implementation continues throughout the Jewish General Hospital, we are using all three toolkits,” said Marc-André Reid, Chief Information Officer at the CIUSSS Centre-ouest de l’Île de Montréal.
Reflecting on all the presentations throughout the day, Professor Susan Drouin asserts, “The Graduate Student Symposium beautifully showcased an academic year of innovation and hard work where students used knowledge translation and project management approaches to solve real-world challenges in practice settings. Project advisors, faculty, ISON students and invited guests joined us to witness the results of this journey and celebrate the next generation of change agents!”
Cover photo:Celebrating a successful project with their supervisors, left to right: Mathieu Roland Jette, Naussicca Lakena Hour, Sydney Reid, Zoe Krochenski, Erica Bugarin, Jessica Emed, Marc-André Reid.
