Nursing Research

How our nursing studies are paving the way for better patient care.

Like every other nurse manager, Glenn Huff passed out peer performance reviews when sending an employee up the job ladder. But recently, he began to wonder just how effective – and objective – those peer reviews really were.

So he asked nurses for their opinion. In a hospital-wide survey, Glenn polled about 800 nurses to see if they liked the current system, which weighs co-workers’ opinions when determining raises and promotions. He hopes the results of the survey, due later this summer, will help affirm the process or guide the hospital to a better method.

The Carle Foundation has long valued nursing research. But as we work to become a Magnet hospital, projects like Glenn’s are becoming even more important.

“Carle wants to be viewed as the best place to come to for care,” said Cheryl Schraeder, head of Carle’s Health System Research Center. “Research helps us improve our practice and know what we have to do to be the best.”

The Carle study, for example, is looking at a new protocol to help reduce the number of patient falls. Another project is coming soon to measure yoga’s influence on breast cancer patients.

Other studies examine nursing practices and perceptions, which can result in higher job satisfaction for RNs. In addition to the peer performance review study, we are conducting research on how international hospital nurses perceive their jobs and how advanced practice nurses find meaning in their work.

In many ways, Carle has been a national leader in nursing research.

Our involvement began in 1988, when the Kellogg Foundation and the Center for Research in Ambulatory Health Care Administration funded a study that investigated whether frail seniors benefited from nursing case management (They did).

Over the next decade, we continued to conduct numerous externally funded nursing case management studies. Then in 2002, Carle became one of 15 hospitals to receive federal funding for the Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration, which studies how nurses can help the elderly manage chronic illnesses.

Fast forward a few years and we’re still setting the pace.

When Glenn began to investigate the topic of peer review last year, he could find little to no research published in the healthcare or general business literature. When the survey is complete, he plans to submit the results in a national nursing journal for possible publication.

“The point is to improve patient care not just at Carle, but across the nation,” he said.