Nurse-Led Initiatives Benefit Patients and Finances at North Carolina Hospitals

Nurse-led initiatives at several North Carolina hospitals significantly improved patient outcomes and could result in savings of more than $2.5 million, according to the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), which funded the program.

The 16-month hospital-based nurse leadership and innovation training program, known as the AACN Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy, seeks to empower bedside nurses as clinician leaders and agents of change. The nurses’ initiatives must seek to generate quantifiable improvements in quality of care and hospital finances. The North Carolina cohort is the most recently completed project. An Indianapolis academy was completed last year and work continues at hospitals in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas

Four of the North Carolina Academy’s teams focused on early progressive mobility, which can help reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), pressure ulcers, and deep-vein thrombosis. Among the outcomes, early progressive mobility: 

• Decreased intensive care unit length of stay by more than one day;
• Reduced mechanical ventilation days up to 35 percent;
• Reduced VAP up to 60 percent;
• Decreased pressure ulcers up to 20 percent; and
• Reduced readmission rates.

The AACN CSI Academy Innovation Database includes a compilation of CSI team results and documentation.

The program is part of AACN’s response to the Institute of Medicine’s landmark The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health  report, which explored the vital role that nurses can and should play in transforming health care.

Deadline Approaching for Funding Opportunity

The April 17, 2013 (3:00 p.m. ET) deadline for the RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio Call for Proposals for the research initiative Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Health and Health Care Challenges is quickly approaching.

It is expected that approximately five awards of up to $200,000 each under this call for proposals will be made. Projects will last for up to two years each. Please find the key dates below:

April 17, 2013 (3:00 p.m. ET)—Deadline for receipt of 1,500-character brief proposal (description of the idea or experiment) and 1,000-character partnership plan.

May 29, 2013—Applicants notified as to whether they have been invited to submit a full proposal.

July 17, 2013 (3:00 p.m. ET)—Deadline for receipt of full proposals.

Mid-September 2013—Notification of awards.

November 15, 2013—Start of grants.


 Click here to access the Call for Proposals.

Marketplace Health Care: The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now

 

This Marketplace podcast by Dan Gorenstein looks at the role of nurse practitioners as approximately 30 million Americans gain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Listen to/read the podcast here.

Grant Opportunity: Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Problems in Health and Healthcare

Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Problems in Health and Healthcare is a partnership with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to fund approximately five awards of up to $200,000 for projects will last up to two years each. Through this funding opportunity, RWJF and Donaghue are particularly interested in research proposals that test innovative solutions to the challenge of reducing the use of low-value services in health care and for which academic teams collaborate with an outside organization, corporation, or partner that has a population or infrastructure that can be used to test pioneering and promising behavioral economic approaches. This funding is intended to support initiatives that have real potential of being used by these organizations if they prove to be effective.

Call For Proposals: Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Health and Health Care Challenges

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio announced their Call for Proposals for the research initiative: Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Health and Health Care Challenges.

This solicitation is currently seeking innovative proposals that apply the principles and frameworks of behavioral economics to persistent and perplexing health and health care problems. The hope is to discover new interventions and insight that have potential to dramatically improve the way health care is delivered and health is promoted and preserved.

The solicitation is particularly interested in supporting experiments that test innovative solutions to the challenge of reducing the use of low-value services in health care. This problem is particularly important given the rising costs and unaffordability of health care in the United States, but has been difficult to impact in part due to perverse incentives in a fee-for-service environment.

 Click here to find out more information about the Applying Behavioral Economics to Perplexing Health and Health Care Challenges Call for Proposals.

INQRI Grantee on the "Zero-Risk Bias"

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Human Capital blog is in the midst of an exciting blog carnival, focused on "Health Care in 2013."  INQRI grantee Olga Yakusheva recently contributed an entry for this carnival, which outlines her wish for the U.S. health care system this year: "that we become more aware of the zero-risk bias" so that health care resources are used more effectively.

Click here to read Dr. Yakusheva's piece.

Free Webinar Highlighting Healthcare Transitions and Coordination

Next week, former INQRI grantee, Gerri Lamb, PhD, FAAN, RN, is the featured guest for a webinar focusing on how healthcare transitions and coordination affect early readmissions, care effectiveness and the economics associated with the two. This is the second webinar in this two part series that highlights the importance of care transitions.

To register for the upcoming webinar, click here.

To view the first webinar of the two part series, which featured INQRI director, Mary D. Naylor, PhD, RN, click here.