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To develop evidence-based practice skills, students need to be capable of retrieving various levels of scholarly information, evaluating its usefulness, and applying it to clinical practice. The authors discuss the process of developing an information literacy curriculum for a cohort of students over a 5-semester nursing program using lesson study.

Collaboration across disciplines is vital in clinical practice. It is also needed to generate high-quality actionable research, yet few frameworks for interdisciplinary collaboration exit to promote effective communications among researchers with common boals, but varied backgrounds. A review of that has been learned about collaboration was undertaken to determine attributes of effective interdisciplinary collaboration and barriers to its realization in patients undergoing lung transplantation.

Background—The emergence and subsequent integration of new technologies precipitate changes in roles and work lives of nurses. The nurses' work with home monitoring technologies within a spirometry-based program that transmits pulmonary function data after lung transplantation has characteristics that are distinct from other types of direct patient care. Nurses' changing roles in such programs after transplantation have not been well described.Objective—To describe a time-motion study of 2 research nurses in the context of a home-spirometry study to monitor patients' pulmonary status after lung transplantation.Method—A detailed list of research nurses' 67 routine work-related activities was developed and validated to monitor and record activities of research home monitoring nurses. Two weeks of observations were completed; recordings of a second observer established reliability of observations.Results—In 48.8 hours of observation, 610 tasks related to monitoring of 45 patients were recorded. Task time ran...

Cardiac arrhythmias increase mortality and diminish quality of life. Several online databases were searched to produce relevant articles examining the effectiveness of acupuncture on cardiac arrhythmias. Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years in Eastern medicine to treat multiple medical conditions and has been documented to improve many aspects of cardiovascular functioning. Despite several identified gaps in the efficacy of typical arrhythmia treatments (eg, pharmacotherapy, cardioversion), evidence supporting the use of acupuncture for cardiac arrhythmias has yet to be synthesized. According to the eight studies reviewed, 87% to 100% of participants converted to normal sinus rhythm after acupuncture. Acupuncture seems to be effective in treating several cardiac arrhythmias, but the limited methodologic quality of the studies necessitates better-controlled clinical trials. For acupuncture to become a more viable intervention in Western medicine, more rigorous studies are needed with standardized treatment protocols, diverse patient populations, and long-term follow-up.

Background: Lung transplantation is now a standard intervention for patients with advanced lung disease. Home monitoring of pulmonary function and symptoms has been used to follow the progress of lung transplant recipients in an effort to improve care and clinical status. The study objective was to determine the relative performance of a computer-based Bayesian algorithm compared with a manual nurse decision process for triaging clinical intervention in lung transplant recipients participating in a home monitoring program. Materials and Methods: This randomized controlled trial had 65 lung transplant recipients assigned to either the Bayesian or nurse triage study arm. Subjects monitored and transmitted spirometry and respiratory symptoms daily to the data center using an electronic spirometer/diary device. Subjects completed the Short Form-36 (SF-36) survey at baseline and after 1 year. End points were change from baseline after 1 year in forced expiratory volume at 1 s (FEV1) and quality of life (SF-36 scales) within and between each study arm. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between groups in FEV1 or SF-36 scales at baseline or after 1 year.: Results were comparable between nurse and Bayesian system for detecting changes in spirometry and symptoms, providing support for using computer-based triage support systems as remote monitoring triage programs become more widely available. Conclusions: The feasibility of monitoring critical patient data with a computer-based decision system is especially important given the likely economic constraints on the growth in the nurse workforce capable of providing these early detection triage services.

We developed an instrument to measure the satisfaction of lung transplant recipients with home monitoring. The survey comprised 15 items, each scored on a five-point Likert-type scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). Three additional free-text items enabled subjects to provide comments. The survey had a scoring range of 15–75. In a test group of 43 patients, the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.93 overall for all questions. The intra-class correlation for scores from the same 27 patients approximately 2.5 months apart was 0.77 for the total score. The survey was used to evaluate subject satisfaction in a randomized controlled trial of a computerized algorithm for triaging lung transplant recipients. Surveys were mailed to 50 study subjects and were returned by 32 (64% return rate). Ninety percent of respondents were satisfied with the home monitoring programme and would recommend it to other patients.

Context Newsletters are a common intervention for patients in clinical trials. However, it is not clear whether newsletters are associated with increased adherence to the health regimen, and if so, which aspects of the newsletter are reported as most helpful to patients. Objective To examine the association between patients' ratings of worthwhileness of a quarterly newsletter and adherence with a home spirometry regimen. Design Patients (n=48) were in a research-based spirometry program after lung transplant and had received at least 1 newsletter; 24 (50%) returned completed surveys via postal mail. Main Outcome Measures Adherence for forced vital pulmonary function tests for respondents versus nonrespondents, number of weeks they were adherent, ratings they gave the newsletter, and which components of the newsletters were helpful to the respondents. Results Respondents had more forced vital capacity pulmonary function tests (“blows”) overall, blew more times weekly, and blew more consistently from week to week than did nonrespondents. Although it was not statistically significant, a mild correlation was found between the number of weeks that the respondents were adherent and their ratings of the newsletter ( r = 0.36, P = .08). Most respondents reported that newsletter length was “about right,” and 86% reported that newsletters helped encourage regular spirometer use, maintain interest in the study, educate about general health, and alert readers to seasonal health risks. Implications for Practice High ratings for newsletters used to encourage participation among adults in our home spirometry study were associated with higher adherence.

Objective: Home telemonitoring improves clinical outcomes but can generate large amounts of data. Automating data surveillance with clinical decision support could reduce the impact of translating these systems to clinical settings. We utilized time-motion methodology to measure the time spent on activities monitoring subjects in the two groups of a home spirometry telemonitoring randomized controlled trial: the manual nurse review (control) group and the automated review (intervention) group. These results are examined for potential workflow effects that could occur when the intervention translates to a clinical setting. Materials and Methods: Time motion is an established industrial engineering technique used to evaluate workflow by measuring the time of predefined, discrete tasks. Data were collected via direct observation of two research nurses by a single observer using the repetitive or snap-back timing method. All observed tasks were coded using a list of work activities defined and validated in an earlier study. Reliability data were collected during a 2-h session with a secondary observer. Results: Reliability of the primary observer was established. During 35 h of data collection, a sample of 938 task observations were recorded and coded using 46 previously defined and 5 newly defined work activities. Between-group comparisons of activity time for subjects in the two study groups showed significantly more time spent on data review activities for the automated review group. Reclassification of the 51 observed activities identified 15 activities that would translate to a clinical setting, of which 5 represent potentially new activities. Conclusions: Implementing an intervention into a clinical setting could add work activities to the clinical workflow. Time-motion study of research personnel working with new clinical interventions provides a template for evaluating the workflow impact of these interventions prior to translation from a research to a clinical setting.

A majority of people in the United States use complementary and alternative therapies, and this use is increasing. With the increasing interest, providers must evaluate potential risks and benefits of these therapies. This article describes challenges of a feasibility study of acupuncture as a potential therapeutic adjunct to prevent atrial fibrillation following coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Institutional review board approval, consent logistics, implementation issues, and rapid changes in clinical practice were the primary challenges faced. Unique technological features of the institution helped address these challenges. The study protocol was acceptable to staff, patients, and family and was considered safe for these patients. However, the protocol was not feasible as designed; therefore, the efficacy of acupuncture could not be determined. Continued research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture to prevent atrial fibrillation following coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Recommendations for future studies of complementary and alternative therapies in acute and critical care settings are offered.