Neuropsychiatric Stabilization in Youths on the Autism Spectrum in the Pediatric Emergency Department: A Call for Practice Standardization.

Introduction: Children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric comorbidities, particularly autism spectrum disorder and developmental delays (ASD/DD), present unique challenges in pediatric emergency department (PED) settings. Youths with ASD/DD are prone to sensory overload and frequently exhibit agitation and/or aggression, necessitating specialized interventions. However, PEDs lack standardized protocols for managing behavioral dysregulation in this vulnerable population, often relying on anecdotal treatment approaches that hinder the provision of safe, effective and individualized care.

Implementing an Adverse Childhood Experiences Screening Tool With Migrant Children: A Quality Improvement Project Using the PEARLS Screening Tool.

Background: Immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees live with extreme stress, consistent vulnerability, and life-long health consequences. Children in these populations face an increased risk of poor mental health because of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

Aim: To implement an ACE screening questionnaire for all migrant children aged < 19 years in a community shelter.

Publication patterns of graduates from a DNP program with submission of a manuscript as a degree requirement.

Background: Nurses who earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree are expected to make essential contributions to the scholarship of practice and the improvement of health care outcomes. The DNP program at Duke University School of Nursing requires that students demonstrate scholarship competence by writing a manuscript based on their DNP project and submitting it for publication.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to share an evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach.

Differentiation and Integration of Research, Evidence-Based Practice, and Quality Improvement.

Background: Substantial discrepancies exist in how research, evidence-based practice (EBP), and quality improvement (QI) are taught to nursing students across academic levels. As nursing education programs adopt the new The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education and move toward competency-based education, prelicensure and advanced nursing students will need to demonstrate research, EBP, and QI competencies; therefore, faculty must possess the knowledge and skills to teach these paradigms' differences and integration.

Method: An evidence-based approach that builds on the literature and our experience as nurses and educators was used to develop this educational innovation.

Evidence-Based Practice Quality Improvement Critical Appraisal Tool.

Background: Optimal quality improvement in health care is based on research and other types of evidence. Critical appraisal of evidence is a fundamental component of evidence-based practice (EBP) and is also needed to evaluate the quality of quality improvement (QI) projects.

Problem: Currently available EBP or QI critical appraisal tools can be challenging for students learning the critical appraisal process and for practicing clinicians who desire access to a standardized EBPQI approach to inform health care decision-making.

Optimizing Quality Improvement Methods in Practice : A Case Study Approach.

Background: Quality improvement (QI) initiatives help ensure patients are receiving high-quality care. Iterative Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles are used to test change. Data are evaluated over time, and tests of change can be modified or discarded as needed.

Consistent scholarship standards among DNP-prepared faculty needed: Actionable insights.

DNP-prepared faculty report challenges and barriers to achieving success in academic roles when criteria for promotion includes scholarship. The purpose of this evidence-based initiative was to explore thoughtful scholarship standards for DNP-prepared faculty which can be adapted and transferred across academic institutions with the goal of elevating faculty scholarship. Given a paucity of available research evidence, a review and synthesis of non-research evidence was conducted.

The Mountain Model for Evidence-Based Practice Quality Improvement Initiatives.

This article introduces the Mountain Model, the first conceptual model for evidence-based practice quality improvement (EBPQI) initiatives. The Mountain Model merges modern evidence-based practice (EBP) and quality improvement (QI) paradigm principles into a unified conceptual framework with the goal of disseminating and sustaining EBPQI projects across health care and related settings. The model was developed within the nursing discipline, but is designed for transdisciplinary implementation through interprofessional teams.

Tailoring African American Faith Community-Based Diabetes Self-Management Education.

African Americans (AA) experience a disparate effect of type II diabetes (T2D). For this nurse-led pilot study, a pre-validated 6-week diabetes self-management education (DSME) program was implemented in a faith community setting and tailored to the participants' faith and culture by using short scriptural lessons, prayers, and individual sharing. Participants demonstrated improvements in fasting blood glucose (p = .

CE: Beyond PICO-A New Question Simplifies the Search for Evidence.

The framework for the PICO (population, intervention, comparison intervention, outcome) question was developed for use in the field of medicine to help determine the best treatment or intervention for a patient. However, use of the PICO question often fails to make sense when the problem or issue of interest is unrelated to determining the best treatment; in such cases, PICO is a less-than-optimal framework to use in searching for evidence. Nurses undertaking an evidence-based practice quality improvement (EBPQI) initiative must begin with a full understanding of the problem by exploring both external evidence (research) and internal evidence from the local setting to support the initiative.

Misuse of the P Value: Using Quality Improvement Analyses to Identify Clinically Significant Improvements.

Introduction: Quantitative research and quality improvement (QI) both seek to improve care provided to patients. However, clinicians often blur the lines between how to appropriately analyze data from these methodologies. Clinicians may inappropriately use statistical analyses for QI initiatives, rather than using run and statistical process control (SPC) charts to analyze improvements in outcomes.

Secure Messaging: Demonstration and Enrollment Patient Portal Program: Patient Portal Use in Vulnerable Populations.

Vulnerable populations face challenges gaining access to quality healthcare, which places them at a high risk for poor health outcomes. Using patient portals and secure messaging can improve patient activation, access to care, patient follow-up adherence, and health outcomes. Developing and testing quality improvement strategies to help reduce disparities is vital to ensure patient portals benefit all, especially vulnerable populations.

Evaluation of DNP program essentials of doctoral nursing education: A scoping review.

Background: In 2021, the American Association of Colleges of Nurses revised the core competencies for professional nursing education. The revision includes a call for a transformation from a traditional approach to a competency-based approach for teaching and learning.

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic scoping review was to provide a fuller understanding of how DNP programs have historically evaluated and documented attainment of the essentials of doctoral nursing education in a summative manner in order to inform developing methods for addressing the newly endorsed advanced-level competencies in nursing education.

PluginPlay: Enabling exascale scientific software one module at a time.

For many computational chemistry packages, being able to efficiently and effectively scale across an exascale cluster is a heroic feat. Collective experience from the Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project suggests that achieving exascale performance requires far more planning, design, and optimization than scaling to petascale. In many cases, entire rewrites of software are necessary to address fundamental algorithmic bottlenecks.

Research on Predatory Publishing in Health Care: A Scoping Review.

Background: Predatory publishers and their associated journals have been identified as a threat to the integrity of the scientific literature. Research on the phenomenon of predatory publishing in health care remains unquantified.

Purpose: To identify the characteristics of empirical studies on predatory publishing in the health care literature.

Dissemination of doctor of nursing practice project findings: Benefits and challenges associated with publishing in healthcare journals.

Background: Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs require a project to improve outcomes in a health care setting. However, dissemination methods vary.

Purpose: This evaluation examined benefits and challenges associated with submitting project manuscripts to a peer-reviewed health care journal in a DNP program with this requirement.

Integrating Maternal Depression Screening Into an Early Intervention Program: An Implementation Evaluation.

Background: In all 50 states, early intervention (EI) services to improve long-term child cognitive and academic outcomes are provided to infants and toddlers with suspected or diagnosed developmental delays. When mothers of EI-enrolled children experience depressive symptoms, uptake of EI services can be compromised.

Aims: The purpose of the article is to present a depressive symptom screening intervention for mothers consisting of toolkit development for EI staff and families, symptom screening for mothers and follow-up protocol.

NP Role and Patient Outcomes Are Supported by High-Level Evidence. Comment on Almutairi et al. Nurse Practitioner: Is It Time to Have a Role in Saudi Arabia? 2020, , 41-47.

This is a letter to the editor in response to the article titled "Nurse Practitioner: Is it Time to Have a Role in Saudi Arabia?" Clarifications on the nurse practitioner role definition and description, educational preparation, and quality and value of care are made and supported with authoritative, high-quality evidence.