Pilot Evaluation of a Functional Pain Assessment Scale.

Purpose/aims: Common pain assessment tools measure intensity, ignoring other dimensions of pain like function. The aim of this study was to test the psychometric properties of a newly developed functional pain assessment scale (FPAS) for use in clinical practice.

Design/methods: In this descriptive correlational study, an FPAS was developed and then evaluated against 2 validated pain tools in 68 hospitalized adult patients experiencing acute and/or chronic pain.

Intersecting Evidence-Based Practice With a Lean Improvement Model.

In our journey from Magnet designation to a Lean hospital, a team of advanced practice nurses, a nurse scientist, and Lean specialists developed a crosswalk of evidence-based practice (EBP) with Lean to explicitly embed the use of evidence in our organization's 4-step problem-solving method. Once finalized, the blended Lean-EBP model now guides improvement work as highlighted in the example of updating our practice for frequency of changing peripheral intravenous catheters.

Changing nursing practice through a nursing journal club.

As hospitals seek to promote evidence-based nursing practice and improve the quality of bedside nursing care, formation of a nursing journal club can be one strategy to accomplish both goals.

Delirium: a process improvement approach to changing prescribing practices in a community teaching hospital.

An interdisciplinary continuous process improvement team developed an educational intervention for physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals that focused on the role of medications in the etiology of delirium among hospitalized patients aged 65 years and older. An analysis of prescribing practices after the educational intervention revealed a reduction in the use for 57% of the drugs targeted. Other outcomes from this process improvement methodology are also examined.