Presenting Change
Our final dissemination project was presented to the Bean 5 nursing staff in the form of posters hung up on the unit, and survey’s dispersed to the staff. Unfortunately, we did not acquire any feedback from our surveys, which is slightly disappointing because we cannot accurately assess the staff’s response. We may not have received feedback on our surveys due to multiple reasons. One reason is our survey was only posted on the unit for about a week and a half, so we may not have had enough exposure. Another reason is we relied on the unit educator to disperse our educational posters around the unit, so these may not have been placed in high trafficked or visible areas.
Since we cannot assess if the Bean 5 staff feels our oral care plan could be implemented on their unit, I believe that it would be fairly easy to implement from my knowledge of the unit and the staff. Since our project recommends oral care 2-4 times daily, I believe this is feasible so we can prevent oral hospital acquired infections. The nurses on the unit could implement this practice by collaborating with the CNAs on the unit, so they have extra help if they are unavailable to provide oral care.
Throughout the multiple steps of this project, I learned a lot about how I function in a team unit, and the different ways a project can come together. I feel that this was a valuable experience for me because I will constantly be collaborating with coworkers in nursing practice. One especially valuable skill I learned throughout this project is to respect and honor differences of opinions. During our group project, we didn’t always agree on a plan, and there were often decisions made that I didn’t fully agree with. Even though I wasn’t 100% sure about every decision made, I learned how to trust my team members and respect that everyone has a different method or opinion of how things should be done, and that my method was not always best for the team.
Working as a team helped me build on skills I already had, such as respect, delegation, leadership, collaboration, communication, and trust. All of these qualities would make me a good candidate for a quality improvement or evidenced-based practice team as a nurse on my future unit. I learned a lot about myself while developing this project as well, including knowing when it is time to step up and provide direction, and when it’s time to step back and let others take control. This balance is essential to team collaboration and success, and I would like to keep working to maintain this balance in future team activities as a nurse.
This is our Final Dissemination Project on oral care practices and education to prevent hospital acquired infections. Authors are Brett Collard, Celine Pelton, Grace Howard, Hanna Freeman, Shannon O’Roak, Sophia Jones, and Rhiannon Reagan. If there are any questions about this project or you would like more information, please contact soroak@une.edu
