EVI DE N CE -BAS E D P RACT ICE
Ongoing partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering supports system-wide evidence-based practice BY LAURA WISE-BLAU
Preeminent cancer care hospital system Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has partnered with the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidencebased Practice in Nursing and Healthcare to integrate evidence-based practice (EBP) across its entire system. The ongoing partnership is a first for both organizations, involving a series of cohorts with more than 300 MSK staff across facilities in New York and New Jersey, along with practice partners in Pennsylvania and Florida and academic partners from the State University of NY at Stony Brook.
and establishment of a graduate nurse residency program. The system had made significant investment in providing more outpatient services and developing regional sites to address growing demand, yet its leadership wanted to do more. “We were seeking ways to move the nursing department forward and needed a framework to engage our 3500-plus nurses,” said Kevin P. Browne, MSN, RN, CCRN, senior director and deputy chief nursing officer at MSK. “We wanted to demonstrate the value of nursing; we needed a set of standards.” A 2016 keynote address delivered by The Ohio State University’s Vice President for Health Promotion, Executive Director of the Fuld Institute for EBP and College of Nursing Dean Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, to the staff of MSK was the catalyst that started the collaboration. Browne related that Melnyk’s keynote address was, for him, “an ‘a-ha’ moment. It was a vision.”
Kevin Browne and Liz McCormick of MSK (right) met with team members from the Fuld Institute for EBP in 2016 for the first immersions. On the next page, two more immersion groups at MSK got the ball rolling. MSK has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with new research and ambulatory facilities, recruitment of world-class scientists and health professionals 42 | nursing.osu.edu
Soon after, Lynn Gallagher-Ford, PhD, RN, NEBC, DPFNAP, FAAN, senior director of the Fuld Institute for EBP, met with MSK leaders and developed a partnership plan. “We wanted to demonstrate the value of nursing. For us, this meant doing something different, something amazing,” said Browne. “Lynn was the ‘secret sauce’ that made us know that the EBP initiative was something we wanted to be involved with.” Before long, the two organizations created programming and put models into place that would develop and leverage EBP competencies at MSK. MSK hoped to get all its 2,500-plus nurses, including nearly 350 nurse practitioners, 50 clinical nurse specialists and more than a dozen nurse educators