Creating disseminator champions for evidence-based practice in health professions education: an educational case report

Abstract

Introduction: In today's healthcare environment, it is a necessity to prepare nurses and other health professionals to provide and disseminate evidence-based practices (EBP) throughout their careers.

Purpose: This educational case report describes a health professional education program's successful endeavor to educate and create evidence-based champions.

Case description: The presented model for developing evidence-based practitioners is based on two distinct phases. Phase one is for EBP skill development and includes preparing students how to read, analyze and discuss levels of evidence within the didactic and clinical curriculum. Phase two is focused on developing dissemination skills by requiring students to complete a clinical case report project with the assistance of academic and clinical faculty mentors. Phase three reviews outcomes of the project and phase four provides the mechanism for future plans. Based on quality, student and faculty interest, a select number of case reports are chosen for presentation at a university Research Day as well as submitted for state and national conferences to further disseminate findings.

Outcomes: This educational activity had positive outcomes including: increased student participation, Clinical Instructors and faculty scholarship, and dissemination of EBP. Data demonstrates student interest in presenting at Research Day to have steadily increased during the 3-year period of this endeavor. Dissemination occurred at university (n = 22), state (n = 13) and national (n = 9) levels. Additional educational benefits derived from this project included, 1) broader participation of clinical settings, 2) requests by additional clinics to participate for purposes of developing EBP and scholarly presentation skills of clinicians, and 3) increased opportunity for academic faculty to continue engagement in contemporary clinical practice.

Conclusion: The evolution of this case report project has allowed an academic requirement to become a marker of distinguished commitment to professional advancement.

Keywords: Champions; Change agents; Dissemination; Evidence-based practice; Health profession education; Scholarship.