Covidence was recently invited to attend the ANCC (American Nurses Credentialing
Center) pre-research symposium in New Orleans, Louisiana USA. As a native New Orleanian I embraced this moment, eager to bring the energy I feel with Covidence to my home as a nurse as well as a researcher.
Improving patient care
As a nurse and a researcher I value the joint contribution of art and science to improving patient care. The passageway from becoming a nurse to researcher is a journey and not a sprint. Experience, curiosity, and knowledge coupled with training led the way. Transitioning from nurse to researcher has allowed me to take the “art and the science” of nursing and craft a space in the world of research.
As a registered nurse for many years with a clinical background both inpatient and outpatient, I recognize patient outcomes are often linked to gaps in processes within organizations and transitions of care. Because of this, I know how important it is to take measures to mitigate them. Also, from my experience working in the community, I recognized poor outcomes were often a result of social determinants of health. Caring for the individual, family, and community are contextual, – each experience is unique. As a Trustee of the Neuman Systems Model Conceptual Theoretical Framework I understand how important it is to apply theory in our work as nurses. Theory provides a lens to gain further insight into the needs of these groups as well. Holistic assessment is important to provide the best interventions from the best evidence. As nurses, we witness phenomena at every stage of care which gives us direct understanding into issues that can impact the continuum of health and illness.
The art of nursing
The lived experience of nurses is key to identifying and closing process gaps. Nurses are valuable and creative and hold the answers to many opportunities leading to improvement. I try not to say “problem” as opportunities give us a place to grow. I believe we must use the best evidence to drive practice. This is the best way to improve patient outcomes at the individual, family and community level. Covidence has created a space for me as a community support manager and nurse scientist to work with teams conducting research around the globe. At this conference I had the opportunity to share with fellow nurses that hold a role in either clinical, administrative, academic, and nursing practice, – this wonderful tool that supports reviews of all types. A serendipitous finding brought forth from the nurses is that our tool has been used to support evidence-based projects. I discovered that some nurse educators use our tool after they have identified their references for their literature review to aid them in finding relevant evidence to support their project. Covidence is a tool that allows teams to work with researchers around the globe allowing for an unlimited number of reviewers. What is also great here, in Covidence you can also include your question using the Patient Intervention Comparison Outcome (PICO) framework or the framework specific for your discipline which will aid in the screening process. Also, another educator shared how they modified the quality assessment template to critically appraise the evidence and evaluate the trustworthiness and relevance of the research studies. I’ve learned this from very creative nurses. In Covidence you can use the pre-populated Cochrane Risk of Bias 1 tool or you can start from scratch and build the one that supports your work.
Taking this moment to reflect within my role as Community Support Manager as an exhibitor at a nursing conference was reflective of the path that I have taken to get here. As we know, Covidence is a platform designed for researchers by researchers creating a pathway for teams to work asynchronously, which is wonderful in many ways, particularly for nurses that often work different shifts. Nurses work in a variety of settings, both night and day and I can see how our platform would be very beneficial to research councils working with nurses conducting evidence-based projects completing their literature reviews, DNP and PhD students conducting scoping reviews, systematic reviews or literature reviews, – nursing education departments, administrators, and bedside nurses equally. Our tool is good for any team looking to conduct systematic reviews to bring the best evidence to their patients.
Scientific approach to evidence synthesis
Tools like Covidence can help with research into improving patient care because we run webinars frequently and our tool is not limited to only the medical and health sciences, but our platform is also used by other disciplines as well. Our tool could also be used by nurses who are both novices and experienced in the systematic review process. What is great about Covidence is we have resources to support our team of users, from recorded live webinars, knowledge base articles, and YouTube videos. Working with a team of researchers with a strong research background is also a plus. I recently led a community webinar titled Essentials of Writing a Protocol for Systematic Reviews for novice and advanced beginners. We had over 6,000 registrants for the webinar. I started my career as a bedside nurse over 25 years ago, and I’ve practiced in a variety of settings and now continue to educate both graduate and undergraduate students. As a Qualitative Researcher I love to hear the lived experiences. To see nurses engage so deeply to find answers to questions that directly impact their daily practice – no matter whatever the role they occupied was amazing.
Combining the art and the science
I saw this combined art and science in action at ANCC and it was inspiring because hearing them exchange their experiences brought joy to me. Over the past several years our platform has grown using the feedback from our research community. Within my role here at Covidence, I can take information directly back to our product and engineering team straight from our community and see innovative ideas implemented to best support the needs of our users.
Listening to the needs of the nurses as they describe how they use the tool in their current roles and hear what else they would like to see in future product decisions, here I see the “art” of nursing joining “science”. Here at Covidence we are on a mission to change the way the world creates and uses trustworthy knowledge. We also value innovative ideas to further improve our product to meet the needs of the research community.
