ABSTRACT
PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: This article describes the contributions of the clinical nurse specialist in navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure patient and staff safety while providing science-based quality of care. DESCRIPTION: The group of clinical nurse specialists using advanced practice knowledge and skills within the 3 spheres of impact (ie, patient, organization, and nurse) developed and implemented strategies that supported frontline clinicians and met emerging organizational needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. OUTCOMES: The clinical nurse specialist's agility was imperative in navigating the challenges of the pandemic to ensure the safety of patients and staff by providing strategies and standardization to workflow processes across the organization. CONCLUSION: The group's combined clinical expertise and support of frontline nurses positioned the clinical nurse specialist to rapidly escalate the bedside nurse's concerns and provide recommendations to improve workflow while maintaining patient and staff safety.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Nurse Clinicians , Humans , Nurse's Role , PandemicsABSTRACT
Systems Addressing Frail Elders (SAFETM) Care is a geriatric model of care that identifies high-risk hospitalized older adults, and provides targeted interprofessional interventions for risk factors associated with frailty. This post, mixed methods study sought to evaluate SAFETM Care implementation retrospectively at one public academic medical center and describe practical "real-world" considerations for implementation using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). In addition to barriers and facilitators, hidden characteristics to consider for implementation include initiating conditions, skills and experiences of implementers, interpersonal challenges, unique facilitators and barriers, surprising conditions, and threats to and requirements for sustainability. Implementation of SAFETM Care demonstrated effective adoption and implementation, but faced multiple threats that led to failed sustainability. The public sharing of these successes and failures will help implementers understand and make progress in adapting such important geriatric programs and quality improvement initiatives.
