Star Struck: How the Work of the INQRI Program Leaves Me in Awe

Terri Schmitt PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, Assistant Professor, Florida Atlantic University.  Follow Dr. Schmitt on Twitter. 

Last April, while sitting in a hotel bar in Washington, D.C., typing away on my laptop, I was suddenly interrupted by bright lights and a camera crew interviewing what appeared to be several television and movie celebrities.  For a Midwestern girl like myself, this was a once in a lifetime spotting. I later learned that these were attendees of the National Press Corps dinner and friends joked with me that I should have interrupted, asked for autographs, etc.  However, this brief brush with what the world defines as fame was not the most moving, memorable, important, or exciting, event of that day. 

Mary Naylor, Terri Schmitt, Heather Kelley

That day and the previous 48 hours, for me, had been a true once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  I was invited to attend the national conference of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) program and learn from some of the country’s most prominent nurse researchers and interdisciplinary research teams.  Launched in 2005 by RWJF, the INQRI program funded 40 different interdisciplinary research teams.  The work of this organization, that was not even a decade in the making, has changed the face of nursing research and patient outcomes forever.

During those spring days in Washington, I was exposed to teams of nurses, physicians, statisticians, and other health researchers who bring their expertise together to create improved patient outcomes.  The summaries of research, impact, evaluations, revisions, and new projects stemming from the brief 7 years of INQRI funding was more than impressive, it was the visionary foundation for interdisciplinary nursing research.  Meeting the true ‘rock stars’ of nursing science and healthcare in action was exhilarating. 

From the meeting, I took away four meaningful ideals which now impact the way I practice, teach, and view nursing research.

• Interdisciplinary nurse-led research must be done. Within the interdisciplinary nature of healthcare, professions must work together to find solutions.
• Rapid dissemination of sound, peer-reviewed, research is key.  INQRI has employed publications, conferences, the internet, social media, webinars, and the like to more quickly push out results.  To my knowledge, they are the first nursing research entity of its kind to so rapidly and diversely make research findings available.
• The expertise of nursing is critically needed to improve patient outcomes.  Nursing research has often been overlooked in competitive funding proposals because it is not aimed toward some of the groundbreaking science and pharmaceutical advances.  However, the experience of human illness, barriers to care, complications in acute care settings and beyond, inflated costs of readmissions, falls, home care, are just a few of the areas in which nurses are experts.  Our work can be measured, is life and cost saving, and has impact.
• Nurses of all education levels should not only read nursing research, but readily take part in it.  From bedside and classroom, to administration. 

The foundational work of the INQRI program has changed healthcare and nursing forever.

Today, when I teach other nurses about their critical part in nursing research, I reflect on my brief encounter with some of the greatest heroes of nursing research. In April 2012, I got to meet one of the most incredibly impressive people I have ever read.  Her work is far reaching and her leadership has changed how I, and so many others, practice, and her name is Dr. Mary Naylor, the director of the INQRI program.  When I first was introduced I fumbled for words, but finally I knew what to say: “Thank you.”

To the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the leaders of the INQRI program, thank you for your belief in nurses and their commitment to patients, to changing how we as nurses research and practice, and for your commitment of time and resources.  At this one-year anniversary, the dream continues, for patients, for nurses, for healthcare.

The INQRI Challenge

“INQRI will never stop challenging us,” a nurse researcher said.  “First, you told us we had to work across disciplines; then you told us to work across teams.  INQRI made us do everything differently!  I don’t know if you really know how hard that is… but, I’m never going to do it any other way again.”

Although said casually in passing during last year’s Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) national conference, that statement sums up something key about this program.

We have never been interested in business as usual.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched the INQRI program in 2005 to generate, disseminate, and translate research to understand how nurses contribute to and can improve the quality of patient care. As the INQRI leadership team, we strongly supported this goal, but we knew that we needed to adopt a new approach to nursing research.  In our initial strategy sessions, we realized that INQRI would demand that its grantees think outside the box and collaborate in new ways.  We required that all our teams be co-led by a scholar from nursing and one from outside of nursing.  We knew that an interdisciplinary focus would be challenging to researchers who were accustomed to staying within their comfort zones, but that the potential risks would be worth the rewards.

Lori Melichar, Mark Pauly, Mary Naylor, Heather Kelley

Over the course of the program, INQRI has funded 40 interdisciplinary teams to produce evidence that better nursing improves quality of care by reducing medical errors and identifying measures, processes and protocols that help health systems and health professionals ensure the best patient outcomes possible. We have heard time and again from these teams that without the “push” from us to work in collaboration with new partners, it is unlikely that researchers would have reached out to scholars from other disciplines.  Some of the nurse investigators told us that without INQRI asking, “well, why not?” they never would have submitted papers about nursing for publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association or Health Services Research.  Perhaps most gratifying, we’ve heard team members say time and time again that INQRI has convinced them to always pursue future projects with an interdisciplinary team in place.

We are proud of our teams’ efforts and we continue to support the promotion of their work, but we also knew that at our national conference in April 2012, we again would not be pursuing business as usual.  We were not interested in an event where individual team members reported their findings.  Instead, we issued a new challenge.  A select group of INQRI grantees were asked to use their findings as the basis for discussions about: the relationship between their research and trends in interdisciplinary collaboration; methodology and implementation science; quality measurement; dissemination and implementation; and the business case for nursing.  We encouraged these scholars to write papers which, in addition to summarizing previous results and presenting new ones, provided additional insights into the implications of their results for health policy, for the fields of quality measurement and quality improvement, and for translation sciences. In keeping with the collaborative nature of the INQRI program, the selected grantees developed the papers in partnership with other INQRI research teams across a mix of disciplines.  These papers were developed for inclusion in a special supplement of Medical Care and were presented for feedback during the conference.

Last April, we were joined not only by INQRI grantees from all years of the program, but also by RWJF leaders, our National Advisory Committee members, stakeholders from a range of disciplines, students new to the field, and more.  We were thrilled to hear about the wonderful experiences our grantees had over the course of the program and truly gratified to learn from our invited guests that they had developed a strong appreciation for the work of our teams.  There was a buzz in the air as new collaborations formed, new projects were planned, and memories were shared.

Now, we want to continue that feeling of excitement with the publication of that long-planned special supplement.  This week, we are hosting a blog carnival which will provide more information about the supplement as well as the program itself.  Watch this space for exciting updates, videos, and more.  In the meantime, be sure to visit www.inqri.org and the Medical Care site to access the supplement.

As we pause this week to acknowledge the tremendous accomplishments of our grantee teams, we also recognize the need for continued exploration of the field.  We wanted to demonstrate that there is a causal link between nursing and quality and we feel confident that INQRI research has done that.  But, we also recognize that there is work ahead.  Future endeavors must focus on efforts that have fiscal feasibility, which can be sustained over time.  We must not neglect the business case for quality to truly have an impact on the delivery of care.  So, please join us in celebrating this week… and in thinking about how to accomplish all that lies ahead.  Onward!

Mary Naylor, Program Director

Mark Pauly, Program Co-Director

Lori Melichar, Senior Program Officer

Heather Kelley, Program Associate

This post is part of our week-long blog carnival focused on the Medical Care supplement.  Click here to access all posts in this carnival.

More Videos From The INQRI 2012 National Conference

We are pleased to share with all of you the final three recordings from our National Conference, which convened in Washington, DC at the end of April. Below you will see a video from Dr. Susan Hassmiller discussing the role of INQRI in the development and implementation of the Future of Nursing and the Campaign for Action. The two videos following Dr. Hassmiller's comments are panel discussions on "Dissemination & Implementation" and "The Business Case for Changes Nursing". Feel free to share these videos and comment on them either on the blog or their respective Youtube pages.

INQRI and the Future of Nursing



In this session from the 2012 INQRI national conference, RWJF's advisor for nursing, Susan Hassmiller shares her thoughts about INQRI's role in the Future of Nursing and the Campaign for Action.


INQRI Panel: Dissemination and Implementation - INQRI's Potential Impact 




Presented by INQRI grantees: Marita Titler, Deleise Wilson, Barbara Resnick and Leah Shever. Moderated by Polly Pittman. At INQRI's national conference (April 26-27, 2012), a select group of INQRI grantees used their findings as the basis for discussions about the relationship between their research and trends in interdisciplinary collaboration, methodology and implementation science, quality measurement, dissemination and implementation, and the business case for nursing.

INQRI Panel: The Business Case for Changes in Nursing To Improve Quality and Value



Presented by INQRI grantees: Olga Yakusheva, Doug Wholey and Kevin Frick. Moderated by INQRI Co-Director Mark Pauly. At INQRI's national conference (April 26-27, 2012), a select group of INQRI grantees used their findings as the basis for discussions about the relationship between their research and trends in interdisciplinary collaboration, methodology and implementation science, quality measurement, dissemination and implementation, and the business case for nursing.

Newly Released Videos From The INQRI 2012 National Conference

We are pleased to share with all of you three few videos from the INQRI National Conference that took place on April 24-25th of this year. Continue to keep an eye on our blog as we will continue to upload new material from this wonderful and highly successful conference.

“INQRI Leadership Team”

In these clips from the 2012 INQRI national conference, leadership team members Lori Melichar (senior program officer), Mary Naylor (program director), and Mark Pauly (program co-director) share their reflections about INQRI's beginnings, its impact and the stage it has set for the future.





“INQRI Panel: Trends in Interdisciplinary Collaboration”
Presented by INQRI grantees: Cindy Corbett, Linda Costa and Michele Balas
Moderated by David Krol from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

A select group of INQRI grantees used their findings as the basis for discussions about the relationship between their research and trends in interdisciplinary collaboration, methodology and implementation science, quality measurement, dissemination and implementation, and the business case for nursing.

INQRI Panel: Measuring Nurses' Contribution to the Quality of Health Care

Presented by INQRI grantees: Susan Beck, Marianne Weiss, Nancy Ryan-Wenger, Nancy Donaldson.
Moderated by INQRI NAC Member Shelley White-Means.

At INQRI's national conference (April 26-27, 2012), a select group of INQRI grantees used their findings as the basis for discussions about the relationship between their research and trends in interdisciplinary collaboration, methodology and implementation science, quality measurement, dissemination and implementation, and the business case for nursing.

Reflections on INQRI's Work - A Video Presented At Last Week's 2012 National Conference

As many of you know, or may have attended, the INQRI Program held our National Conference last week in Washington, DC. We had the pleasure of engaging the 160+ participants with panels discussing the many facets of INQRI grantees' work. One of the most talked about sessions of the conference was the introductory section, which included a video reflecting on the work of INQRI since its inception 7 years ago. The video is embedded below.



If you are looking for more resources related to the INQRI program's work you can visit our BRAND NEW website that contains a variety of videos, documents, as well as general information about the INQRI program and the grantees we have served over the years.

How Young Nurses Are Invigorating the Profession

Before we discuss our highlighted news story for today, we would like to thank all of you who attended INQRI's successful National Conference in Washington, DC last Thursday and Friday. We had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel discuss how the important role of nurses in improving the United States health care system post health reform and Dr. Sue Hasmiller highlight the growing influence of the Future of Nursing's: Call For Action in all 50 states. Stay tuned to the blog for further stories and videos from our highly engaging conference.

To that end, Laura Raine, of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, discussed the growing influence of young nurses in both clinical and academic settings. Ms. Raine highlights the story of three local nurses who embody the caring spirit that patients expect of nurses while also excelling at their professional duties.

Click here to read the full story.

Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) National Conference Starts Today`

We are eager with anticipation for the start of our National Conference, which begins at 2pm EST today. For those of you who are unable to attend, you can view the agenda for this event here.

We will be live tweeting as much of the event as possible and highlighting the wonderful keynote speech that Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has prepared for our conference tomorrow.

Make sure to follow our twitter feed @INQRIProgram for live updates from the meeting and feel free to get in touch with the program if you are interested in receiving a media packet after our conference has concluded.

We look forward to welcoming all of you that will be joining us and sharing the experience via Twitter and our blog for those of you unable to join us.