How would a nurse practitioner and a nurse manager differ with regard to how they use
and incorporate EBP in their areas of practice?

Nurse managers and nurse practitioners have stack differences in the execution of their duties due to their differences in roles. Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) entails incorporating research findings into clinical practice while considering the patient’s values and needs.

Nurse Managers have the responsibility to embody nurses and implement executive roles at their places of work. A nurse manager reports to a higher office with regards to their jurisdiction. A nurse practitioner, on the other hand, is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that patients are attended to and that their health is improving under their care. As such, a nurse manager is tasked with the responsibility of supervising the nurse practitioner. As such their EBP application will be different. 

The nurse practitioner will include EBP in her daily work ethic and will be careful to get into technical details of the practice. The EPB, in this case, is technical and specialized to the nurse’s profession such as, diagnosing, prescribing, referring and treating patients. On the other hand, the nurse manager tends to get more into management practices rather than into technical details of nursing practice but will do so to ensure that the subordinate nurse practitioners deliver quality and effective care as indicated by Buerhaus, DesRoches, Dittus, and Donelan (2015).

References

Buerhaus, P. I., DesRoches, C. M., Dittus, R., & Donelan, K. (2015). Practice characteristics of primary care nurse practitioners and physicians. Nursing Outlook, 63(2), 144-153.

Jessica’s Post 

Nurse manager and nurse practitioners are both very important to health care, but they are roles that have different levels of autonomy.  While a nurse practitioner has the privileges of diagnosing, prescribing, referring and treating patients, nurses’ scope of practice only allows for them to assess patients and carry out orders from a physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, etc.  Both sectors work based on evidence-based practice (EBP), both following it for better patient outcomes but addressing the process of the results in different ways.  Nurse practitioners would use EBP as it pertains to diagnosing and treatment whole a nurse manager may use it to implement procedures on her floor that would yield more positive patient outcomes. 

Response to Jessica

Hello Jessica,

Great post! You have indicated that a nursing manager needs EBP to implement procedures on her floor in pursuit of better patient outcomes. This is a correct position. A nurse manager should even go ahead and implement research findings related to management practices rather than just stick to nursing research, as expounded by Stetler, Ritchie, Rycroft-Malone, and Charns (2014) will give nurse managers leverage when it comes to influencing nurse practitioner to adopt change. 

References

Stetler, C. B., Ritchie, J. A., Rycroft-Malone, J., & Charns, M. P. (2014). Leadership for evidence-based practice: strategic and functional behaviors for institutionalizing EBP. Worldviews on evidence-based nursing, 11(4), 219-26.

Maita’s Post 

An important factor in providing high quality patient care is for health care staff to implement evidenced based practice into their patient care. EBP has proven to improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes and is practiced by clinicians from different settings. The role of nurse managers (NM) in EBP is essential to how clinical nurse and staff utilize EBP. “NMs have dynamic roles to help facilitate EBP at the unit level, and a more thorough description of their role related to EBP at the unit level” (Kueny, Shever, Lehan Mackin, & Titler, 2015). Their duty is to continue to support their staff and department in utilizing EBP by giving them resources and giving them access to databases allowing them to obtain data to support EBP that they can apply to their duties. Specifically nurse managers have a duty to be role models, “they routinely talked about evidence, searched for evidence, participated in efforts to get evidence used, conducted successful EBP projects, and used evidence to solve problems or persuade others to adopt a change” (Stetler, Ritchie, JRycroft-Malone, & Charns, 2014).

Nurse practitioners (NP) use EBP by incorporating it into their practice. The research that has already been conducted and brought to health care providers to utilize for best practice is already completed and NP’s should use EBP when managing their patients. With prevention and education as the foundation of nursing, NP’s should be able to provide EBP recommendations of current preventative care which can also build on a provider/patient relationship leading to better outcomes (Amend & Golden, 2011). The most rewarding use of EBP is being able to provide new knowledge and education.

References

Amend, R., & Golden, A. (2011). Evidence-Based Practice at the Point of Care. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 7, 303–308. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2011.01.001

Kueny, A., Shever, L. L., Lehan Mackin, M., & Titler, M. G. (2015). Facilitating the implementation of evidence- based practice through contextual support and nursing leadership. Journal of healthcare leadership, 7, 29-39. doi:10.2147/JHL.S45077

Stetler, C. B., Ritchie, J. A., Rycroft-Malone, J., & Charns, M. P. (2014). Leadership for evidence-based practice: strategic and functional behaviors for institutionalizing EBP. Worldviews on evidence-based nursing, 11(4), 219-26.

Response to Maita

Hello Maita, Great post! Nurse managers have the role of providing leadership and positive influence on NPs. This will be critical in ensuring that the technical aspects of EBP are implemented for the betterment of patient outcomes. As such, the nurse manager is not restricted to looking at research findings of nursing practice. He or she has the responsibility of ensuring that he/she is well averse in the field of management. The nurse manager will find it appropriate to have insights into human resource, motivation, employee relations among others. This exposure, according to Hart, Brannan, and De Chesnay (2014) will help the nurse manager in cognitive decision making in the phase of stress and work complexity. 

ReferencesHart, P. L., Brannan, J. D., & De Chesnay, M. (2014). Resilience in nurses: an integrative review. Journal of nursing management, 22(6), 720-734