Sponsor Welcome
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Shannon Carter
Good morning. We’re going to spend a whole lot of time looking at the future. This is an ongoing process that started some time ago. This is the third think-tank in which CCI has engaged this kind of process. This is a main cornerstone of work. There is power in convening great minds that allows us to move forward in a way that we couldn’t otherwise.
We deliberately undertook a series of conversations and think-tanks which focused on patient safety and competence. It was multi-disciplinary and was very broad in its scope. We then narrowed our focused on nursing competence. We invited 40 experts to talk about how to build relevant competence in nursing. There were consistent themes that came out of these two think-tanks: the value of collaboration and the need for more research on the value of certification. We need evidence to support our thinking. The third theme was ongoing commitment.
These events are always fun but we have to understand that what we do next is critical. We have to carry this forward. This has to be more than a fun two days.
This time we partnered with ABNS who embodies these themes. This is the perfect win-win for us to collaborate with them to bring you this event today. I’m going to let Bonnie talk about ABNS.
Bonnie Niebuhr
I want to talk about our commitment to research. I want to give you our vision and mission.
Vision Specialty nursing certification is THE standard by which the public recognizes quality nursing care
Mission Our mission is to promote the value of specialty nursing certfication to all stakeholders
As members you’ve seen that we have a commitment to research. It is our strategic marker. I want to touch on a few of the initiatives that we’ve done over the past few years. Our first research effort started in the late 90s and it involved 20 participating organizations which looked at certification and how it influenced nurses and the care of patients.
In 2002 the ABNS assembly approved a new structure and we formed a research committee. We put into place a funding model in which we raised $12k and we rode those few dollars a long way.
We wanted to look at how nurse managers look at certified nurses. The committee created a survey tool and we had a wonderful response to that. The results were that there were clear preferences for hiring certified nurses.
Our most recent initiative is called the national value study. We wanted to look at the perception of nurses and managers. We’ve received a lot of mileage from this survey and have seen how it has been marketed and received. We were able to embark on this with a tool that was developed by others. We were able to use this tool after it was validated and was shown to be extremely reliable. This saved us a lot of time.
What we saw last night is that you can do more together than alone. I thank CCI for making this opportunity possible. We know that the coalition/partnership model really works. We are committed to the need for solid research basis and to providing tools to our members. We want to take advantage of our collegiality over being competitors with each others. I think through this work we’ve done we’ve cemented a culture of working together.
From here I would like to introduce Melissa Biel. We first brought her in to do the value study and that was the best thing we ever did. She became the liaison to the committee and now she is the deputy director in our big organization of two.
Melissa Biel
There is a great reason to be here and I want to set the context for what we’ve been doing to get us here to this research summit. I have the great good fortune to work with the research committee and several years ago they undertook the task of looking at all the literature on nurses’ certification. It is a living document and very useful and is something that is updated every year.
We discovered from the literature that there are a lot of descriptive studies on this. There are a lot of articles about certification but there is lack of empirical evidence whether certification has an impact on patient outcomes. We saw that we need to focus on evidence which sparked the conversation on how to do that.
From the literature review we came up with seven themes which represent current and future issues for certification. In 2009 we sent out an electronic survey to ABNS members to validate the themes. Thirty-nine people responded and they validated and supported those themes.
In March we hosted a planning meeting to further validate the themes and used scenario planning and then added a theme to work on. We ended up consolidating the themes and ended up with four themes which we now call priorities.
They are:
- Understanding the relationship between nursing certification and patient outcomes
- Measuring continuing competence in nursing
- Examining the relationship between health care work environment and nursing certification
- Determining stakeholder understanding of nursing certification
After seeing all the post-its from last night, I felt that we were all on the same page and your responses validated these priorities. We have plenty of evidence that nurses value their certification. We want to move on to the stakeholders to see how the certification is valued there.
We want to look at these themes and though I feel we’ve gone through due diligence about these priorities I want to know if we’ve missed anything. Do you think there is anything missing from this list?
- Is the consumer one of the stakeholders?
Yes. The patient is the stakeholder. We need the patients or consumers to see that the certification has value.
- Would we include risk management and insurance for the institution?
That work didn’t come up in March but over the next couple of days we’ll figure out what is included. If these four are our priorities then we can look at what are our research questions underneath those. We count on you to help us with that.
- Did you define competence?
No. We used an existing definition.
- Did you discuss the economic value?
Not really. We need to show that - especially in this time of healthcare reform.
- What comes to my mind is the delivery process. Everyone talks about the end result but what are the innovative ways to deliver the certification to make it more valuable and more efficient?
We didn’t discuss that but that would certainly be part of our work over these days. That could come out of the credentialing discussion. If outcomes need to be defined then that’s what needs to be done here over the next couple of days.
- If we’re going to look for definitions then we might want to look for consistencies. Would it be possible to be consistent with what is already done?
- I’m wondering about the other themes that didn’t go forward after March. I’m also wondering about what will be included for renewing certifications.
- In terms of continuing competence, there is a study from NOCA which provides a lot of those answers to questions about recertification.
- Is continual care an issue?
Yes, absolutely. These are by design meant to be broad and then we will drill down to what is included in each of them. We just wanted to start the day to show you what pre-work was done, so this is our jumping off point.
I want to give credit where credit is due; I want to acknowledge that we engaged a content expert group which included Nancy Dunton, Jim Henderson, Kathi Mooney, Christine Penney, and Mary Smolenski, who were invaluable.
The sponsor group has been working hard for the last year and a half and I also want to thank the research committee for their excellent work to get us here today.
Now I want to outline our summit objectives:
Summit Objectives
- Identify research projects that address the research priorities.
- Create opportunities for organizations to partner on research activities.
- Establish plans for organizations to adopt the research agenda.
- Design a communication and marketing plan to disseminate key messages about the international nursing certification research agenda.
- Develop a funding plan for nursing certification research.
Shannon Carter
We will not suffer for lack of ideas. There will be a wealth of energy and enthusiasm. The question is how to make sure that it doesn’t stop there. This is a unique gathering of people. We not only have the nursing specialties groups but we also have people here from ASAE, NOCA, ANSI, and people who make up a group that can move this work forward.
You were each invited for a particular reason. You have influence and decision-making power. You were strategically chosen because you have the ability to move this agenda forward. Your role is not only to report back to your constituents but also to show us how your organization can participate.
I thank you for your time. We’re going to be asking a lot of you over the next couple of days and I think this work will create an agenda we can all be enthusiastic about.
Scribing
