Best Practice Network fosters collaboration
It makes sense that the people who work at the bedside should not only be the ones to implement patient care improvements but should also be the people to figure out what those improvements should look like. So said a group of nursing leaders who first met more than two years ago to discuss ways to proactively shape health care. Their solution: The Best Practice Network, a forum for sharing ideas and information among health care professionals.
"The people at the bedside have the key to improving health care, but they're never really engaged in the changes," says Mary Kingston, RN, MN, director of the Best Practice Network. "We have the ability to tap into the best resources, the people who can tell us what's wrong with the processes. That's where the real renaissance in health care is."
The Best Practice Network, founded by 13 nursing organizations, with headquarters at the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses in Aliso Viejo, CA, maintains an interactive Web site where participants can post their best practices and sponsors the Showcase for Innovation and Best Practices, an international conference on the "best of the best practices." Coming soon is the first edition of The Best Practice Directory, a compilation of peer-reviewed best practices, innovative ideas and resources useful in the development of best practices.
So far, 29 professional organizations including two physician groups have become BPN partners who contribute money and/or ideas to the project. "This is so innovative because nursing and physician associations haven't partnered before," Kingston says. "They haven't taken advantage of the power of collaboration."
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