In April, Jonas Scholar Kimberly Waltrip, MSN, RNC, an American Nurses Association (ANA) and Missouri Nurses Association member, presented a poster at the Tampa VA Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Conference in Glendale, Arizona. Waltrip is a nurse practitioner and PhD student in the College of Nursing, University of Missouri – St. Louis. She received a 2-year award from the Jonas Center in 2014. Created in 2008 to address the critical nurse faculty shortage, the prestigious Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar Program prepares nurses with doctoral degrees for future academic roles.
For her Jonas Scholar Leadership Project, Waltrip collaborated with Jaime Murphy Dawson, MPH, ANA’s senior policy advisor for occupational safety, on a safe patient handing and mobility (SPHM) poster abstract and presentation. Their poster, “Reported Utilization of the ANA 2013 Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Interprofessional National Standards,” presented initial survey data from ANA’s 2015 environmental scan that assesses the national implementation of SPHM programs. Waltrip worked with ANA on the survey development and subsequent analysis of the results.
The purpose of the survey was to gather information regarding the status of SPHM programs and to understand how ANA’s SPHM standards have been used. A total of 209 survey responses were received. Most respondents (58.8%) worked in acute care or hospital settings; 64.9% were RNs.
Key survey findings
The research poster featured the following results:
- Rationale for purchase of the standards:
- to strengthen an existing SPHM program (36.7%)
- to validate or evaluate an SPHM program (23.1%)
- Reported implementation of the standards:
- standards implemented (47.6%)
- standards partially implemented (47.6%)
- Reported outcomes of implementing the standards:
- reduce healthcare worker injuries (75.5%)
- promote patient outcomes (66.0%)
- reduce injury-related costs (62.8%).
Next steps
Following the environmental scan, ANA is planning to develop additional resources, such as a gap analysis tool, to help organizations assess and improve implementation of SPHM programs.
Learn more
To learn more about the Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar Program visit www.jonascenter.org. For more information about ANA’s SPHM initiatives, visit www.nursingworld.org.
