Research Projects
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Jay Smethurst
We’re going to shift into the next phase of work. We’re going to move into the content of the research itself. We’re doing a couple of different things in this next activity. Four teams are going to take the work from this last round and synthesize it and develop some recommendations. We’ll develop some projects and test whether they answer to these recommendations. The other eight teams are going to tackle the research priorities.
In our session from March, we identified sub-bullets and questions and these teams will look at defining what should the research questions be and what should the projects be under these priorities.
When you get into your team, we’ll ask you if there is more information and other stories that need to be told around each of these priorities. You’ll be identifying three to five projects that you would want to work on further. We’ll ask you to fill out a template which identifies these projects.
After that we’ll look at which projects we’ll want to take on. We will be having lunch during this part of the exercise.
Report Out
Synthesis Teams
Team 2 - Funding
We have listed on our boards the ways to organize funding. We could get money from foundations and hire staff. We could collect money in a sustaining way, such as a surcharge on certification. Even at $5 per certificant it will bring in over $2M. Partners could be hospital associations.
There was a need for short-term strategies for financial growth which could lead to the long-term development of an outcomes database. This would be helpful for re-certification as well.
Team 12 - Partnerships 
We had four models. This one looked at it in terms of setting up a steering committee and breaking out into two components. From this foundation we would build a toolkit that was available to everyone. This would help develop standards for everyone and we could maintain quality. We would try to funnel in everyone’s data in the larger pipe.
In the second model we talked about a research institute with high powered people. This would be the corporate arm of the ABNS. The foundation would feed into this for funding.
The third model is the collaborative model. We can see many places where we can do that but it wouldn’t necessarily be tied to the academic agenda. ABNS would have control of how the research would look like.
In the last model is the same as the third but we would go into university research programs. We look at places like Purdue and the University of Kansas and partner with them. We would have a high level of prestige to our research.
Team 8 - Marketing
In the first place we identified who our audience is. We looked at our messaging and we wanted to craft the message to suit the audience. We identified a few categories and even got as far as some taglines.
In terms of role required, we need a development of a marketing model. We would need to have a group who was a centralized decision-making committee with ABNS members, marketing professionals, and representatives from other organizations. They would develop the consensus and the plan to go forward. We have to identify the key influencers.
For implementation, we would have to go back to funding as well as look to the ways to assess success. We have a list of what resources would be required, inclusive of funding, personnel, commitment, centralized oversight, and housing of data. We need to be able to tell the story so we can sell this to the outside world.
Team 4 - Achievements and Milestones
We need to identify our funding sources in order to further our project. Maybe we would go to foundations or membership organizations. We looked at our partnerships. Maybe it is hospitals to begin with, maybe research groups or certifying bodies?
We’ve heard a lot of things from other groups about determining value for stakeholders. We need to clearly articulate the benefits of certification. This fits with the funding component because if we frame our project in terms of what they’re looking for then we’ll likely be more successful. We may not need to put 
our square project into a round hole. We could be collecting anecdotal information to tell our stories.
We thought it would be pretty easy to get impact ouf the process. I keep hearing repeated things about a database. We want to have agreement about the variables and what would be in that database. We want to look at qualitative studies to see what the impacts are on practice. Maybe we can identify the particular dollar amount that the hospital or institution is saving?
Project Teams
Teams 1 & 3 - Certification and Patient Outcomes
We were looking at what research would be valuable on this topic. We did notice that our discussion are always a good thing to happen. The relationships are essential. These can transcend the environment. We want to look at the educational component, including the errors in medication.
Q: What about pain management?
A: Yes, we looked at that from a broad perspective.
Team 1
Team 3
Teams 5 & 6 – Continuing Competence
We want to build a model for assessment and defining competence. We looked at the role of nursing as well as a survey of the specialty groups. We want to identify the best practices and assessments. We looked at how often recertification should take place and what are the best methods for that. Maybe the multi-pronged approach but we want to ask nurses what they’d like to see.
Team 5
Team 6
Team 7 & 9 – Work Environment and Certified Practice
Here we’re looking at the performance of certified nurses. We’re wondering if they reduce costs and liability. There is one that spoke specifically to consumers but that one we have to add still.
Team 7
Team 9
Team 10 & 11 – Stakeholder Understanding Perceived Certification Value
Basically we looked at the value of certification and the gaps in where the perceived value is and have three suggestions for projects listed here.
Team 10
Team 11
