Reporting unit context data to stakeholders in long-term care: a practical approach.

Background: The importance of reporting research evidence to stakeholders in ways that balance complexity and usability is well-documented. However, guidance for how to accomplish this is less clear. We describe a method of developing and visualising dimension-specific scores for organisational context (context rank method).

Healthcare aide involvement in team decision-making in long-term care: A narrative review of the literature.

Aims And Objectives: To provide an overview and synthesis of the current evidence on healthcare aides' involvement in team decision-making in long-term care.

Background: Healthcare aides provide the most direct care to residents in long-term care homes and are uniquely positioned to influence the quality of care. Yet, they are not typically included in team decisions for improving resident care.

Nurses' Attitudes Toward the Importance of Families in Nursing Care: A Multinational Comparative Study.

The aim of this study was to examine nurses' attitudes about the importance of family in nursing care from an international perspective. We used a cross-sectional design. Data were collected online using the Families' Importance in Nursing Care-Nurses' Attitudes (FINC-NA) questionnaire from a convenience sample of 740 registered nurses across health care sectors from Sweden, Ontario, Canada, and Hong Kong, China.

Expanding the Concept of End-of-life Care in Long-term Care: A Scoping Review Exploring the Role of Healthcare Assistants.

Background: The context of care provided in long-term care homes is changing, as an increasing number of older adults are entering long-term care with advance stages of illness and higher care needs. Long-term care homes are quickly becoming the place of death for an increasing number of older adults, despite recent literature identifying inadequate and suboptimal levels of end-of-life care. Within long-term care, healthcare assistants represent 60%-70% of the unregulated workforce and provide 70%-90% of the direct care to residents.

Comparing effects of two higher intensity feedback interventions with simple feedback on improving staff communication in nursing homes-the INFORM cluster-randomized controlled trial.

Background: Effective communication among interdisciplinary healthcare teams is essential for quality healthcare, especially in nursing homes (NHs). Care aides provide most direct care in NHs, yet are rarely included in formal communications about resident care (e.g.

Strategies to facilitate shared decision-making in long-term care.

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore shared decision-making among residents, their families and staff to determine relevant strategies to support shared decision-making in long-term care (LTC).

Background: Meaningful engagement of long-term care home (LTCH) residents and their families in care decisions is key in the provision of quality of care. Shared decision-making is an interprofessional approach to increasing resident and family engagement in care decisions which can lead to higher quality decisions, more relevant care interventions and greater resident, family, and staff satisfaction.

Understanding professional advice networks in long-term care: an outside-inside view of best practice pathways for diffusion.

Background: Interpersonal relationships among professionals drive both the adoption and rejection of consequential innovations. Through relationships, decision-makers learn which colleagues are choosing to adopt innovations, and why. The purpose of our study was to understand how and why long-term care (LTC) leaders in a pan-Canadian interpersonal network provide and seek advice about care improvement innovations, for the eventual dissemination and implementation of these innovations.

SCOPEOUT: sustainability and spread of quality improvement activities in long-term care- a mixed methods approach.

Background: Interventions to improve quality of care for residents of long-term care facilities, and to examine the sustainability and spread of such initiatives, remain a top research priority. The purpose of this exploratory study was to assess the extent to which activities initiated in a quality improvement (QI) collaborative study using care aide led teams were sustained or spread following cessation of the initial project and to identify factors that led to its success.

Methods: This study used an exploratory mixed methods study design and was conducted in seven residential long-term care facilities in two Canadian provinces.

Facilitation roles and characteristics associated with research use by healthcare professionals: a scoping review.

Background: Implementing research findings into practice is a complex process that is not well understood. Facilitation has been described as a key component of getting research findings into practice. The literature on facilitation as a practice innovation is growing.

Generation-specific incentives and disincentives for nurses to remain employed in acute care hospitals.

Aim: This is a report on generation-specific incentives and disincentives selected by acute care nurses that promote and discourage them to remain employed in hospitals.

Background: Recent literature indicates that nurse preferences for strategies to promote their retention may differ across generational cohorts. However, current literature is primarily anecdotal with few studies focused on evidence-based generation-specific nurse retention-promoting strategies.

A protocol for advanced psychometric assessment of surveys.

Background and Purpose. In this paper, we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessments of surveys based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We use the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey to which this protocol can be applied.

Identifying resident care areas for a quality improvement intervention in long-term care: a collaborative approach.

Background: In Canada, healthcare aides (also referred to as nurse aides, personal support workers, nursing assistants) are unregulated personnel who provide 70-80% of direct care to residents living in nursing homes. Although they are an integral part of the care team their contributions to the resident care planning process are not always acknowledged in the organization. The purpose of the Safer Care for Older Persons [in residential] Environments (SCOPE) project was to evaluate the feasibility of engaging front line staff (primarily healthcare aides) to use quality improvement methods to integrate best practices into resident care.

Insights into the impact and use of research results in a residential long-term care facility: a case study.

Background: Engaging end-users of research in the process of disseminating findings may increase the relevance of findings and their impact for users. We report findings from a case study that explored how involvement with the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) study influenced management and staff at one of 36 TREC facilities. We conducted the study at 'Restwood' (pseudonym) nursing home because the Director of Care engaged actively in the study and TREC data showed that this site differed on some areas from other nursing homes in the province.

Nursing home administrators' perspectives on a study feedback report: a cross sectional survey.

Background: This project is part of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, a multi-level and longitudinal research program being conducted in 36 nursing homes in three Canadian Prairie Provinces. The overall goal of TREC is to improve the quality of care for older persons living in nursing homes and the quality of work life for care providers. The purpose of this paper is to report on development and evaluation of facility annual reports (FARs) from facility administrators' perspectives on the usefulness, meaningfulness, and understandability of selected data from the TREC survey.

Recognizing and responding to uncertainty: a grounded theory of nurses' uncertainty.

Background: There has been little research to date exploring nurses' uncertainty in their practice. Understanding nurses' uncertainty is important because it has potential implications for how care is delivered.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a substantive theory to explain how staff nurses experience and respond to uncertainty in their practice.

SCOPE: Safer care for older persons (in residential) environments: a study protocol.

Background: The current profile of residents living in Canadian nursing homes includes elder persons with complex physical and social needs. High resident acuity can result in increased staff workload and decreased quality of work life.

Aims: Safer Care for Older Persons [in residential] Environments is a two year (2010 to 2012) proof-of-principle pilot study conducted in seven nursing homes in western Canada.

Determinants of hospital nurse intention to remain employed: broadening our understanding.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study to identify nurse reported determinants of intention to remain employed and to develop a model explaining determinants of hospital nurse intention to remain employed.

Background: A worsening shortage of nurses globally suggests that efforts must be made to promote retention of nurses. However, effective retention promotion strategies depend on understanding the factors influencing nurse retention.

Work environments and staff responses to work environments in institutional long-term care.

Background: Structures and processes of care such as work environments and care provider responses to work environments have been shown to influence organizational outcomes. To improve health care quality, structures, processes, and outcomes of care should be considered. There is almost no literature reporting on the structural characteristics of work environments and care provider responses to work environments in institutional long-term (chronic) care settings.

Evidence in the palm of your hand: development of an outcomes-focused knowledge translation intervention.

Aim: The aim of the project was to develop an electronic information gathering and dissemination system to support both nursing-sensitive outcomes data collection and evidence-based decision-making at the point-of-patient care.

Background: With the current explosion of health-related knowledge, it is a challenge for nurses to regularly access information that is most current. The Internet provides timely access to health information, however, nurses do not readily use the Internet to access practice information because of being task-driven and coping with heavy workloads.

Impact of hospital nursing care on 30-day mortality for acute medical patients.

Aim: This paper reports on structures and processes of hospital care influencing 30-day mortality for acute medical patients.

Background: Wide variation in risk-adjusted 30-day hospital mortality rates for acute medical patients indicates that hospital structures and processes of care affect patient death. Because nurses provide the majority of care to hospitalized patients, we propose that structures and processes of nursing care have an impact on patient death or survival.

Nurse intention to remain employed: understanding and strengthening determinants.

Aim: This paper reports a study testing a hypothesized model of the determinants of nurse intention to remain employed in current hospitals of employment.

Background: Previous research has shown that stronger nurse intention to remain employed is associated with higher job satisfaction, higher organizational commitment, higher perceived manager support, lower burnout, higher work group cohesion, being older, having more years of nursing experience and having lower levels of education.

Methods: A descriptive survey design was adopted.