Improving Support for Family Caregivers of People with a Serious Illness in the United States: Strategic Agenda and Call to Action.

An estimated 30% of the adult American population are caregivers and many of the people they support live with serious illnesses. Caregivers provide an average of 20 hours of services per week and are heavily involved in assisting with activities of daily living. This input represents considerable economic value to the health care system and to the well-being of communities.

Best practices and inclusion of team science principles in appointment promotion and tenure documents in research intensive schools of nursing.

Background: Nurse scientists are highly sought after and find satisfaction in serving as members of interdisciplinary research teams. These teams also tend to be highly productive. However, nurse scientists in academia also have to reach certain productivity milestones to be promoted and receive tenure that may be incongruent with team science principles.

Moving the needle: Providing evidence based care to older adults with behavioral issues through knowledge translation.

Implementing evidence based practices into practice settings is exceedingly difficult. Knowledge translation is a framework used for moving practices from the literature into the real world. This article discusses how six articles in this special issue of Gerontology and Geriatrics Education use various knowledge translation approaches to implement evidence based practices in older adults with behavioral health issues including dementia, delirium and serious mental illness across a variety of settings, as well as lessons learned for future knowledge translation and implementation science studies.

Development and implementation of a peer mentoring program for early career gerontological faculty.

Purpose: The Hartford Gerontological Nursing Leaders (HGNL) formerly known as the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Initiative (BAGNC), in conjunction with the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Nursing Excellence (NHCGNE), developed and executed a peer mentoring program beginning in 2011 to enhance both (a) the experience of newly selected scholars and fellows to the NHCGNE and (b) the ongoing professional development of HGNL members. The purpose of this article is to describe key strategies used to develop and execute the peer mentoring program and to present formative program evaluation.

Design: The program was launched in January 2011 with seven peer mentor and mentee matches.

Evidence-based practice councils: potential path to staff nurse empowerment and leadership growth.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of participation in staff nurse-led practice councils on nurse job satisfaction and professional development.

Background: Although evidence-based practice (EBP) has become a key component of improving the quality of care, few studies have examined how implementation of staff nurse led councils model affect the involved nurses.

Methods: A 3-stage evaluation involving ethnography, semi-structured phenomenological private interviews and a 10-item survey were conducted with nurses, managers and executives participating in or involved with EBP councils tasked with improving patient outcomes at 6 community hospitals in a single non-profit hospital system.

The effects of an inpatient palliative care team on discharge disposition.

Overview: Inpatient palliative care teams' (PCT) contribution to improved quality of life and patient satisfaction as well as decreased utilization and costs has been well established. Yet few studies have examined the specific effect of an inpatient PCT on discharge disposition, despite evidence of an association between hospice enrollment, decreased rehospitalization, and improved resource utilization.

Methods: Patients admitted to a large nonprofit multisite hospital between June 2004 and December 2007 and seen by the PCT were matched to usual care (UC) patients on age, mortality risk, prior year hospitalized days, and disease severity.

What impact do setting and transitions have on the quality of life at the end of life and the quality of the dying process?

Purpose: The aim of this article was to identify major research needs related to quality of life at the end of life and quality of the dying process for vulnerable older people at home, in assisted living facilities, in skilled nursing facilities, and in prisons.

Design And Methods: Review and analysis of the literature was used.

Results: The science is generally weak in relationship to what is known about quality of life at the end of life and quality of dying for vulnerable older adults in different settings.