Education: eLearning in Nursing

Submitted by: Anya Wood, eLearning Education Manager and  Cathy Johnson, Project Manager Nursing Informatics

A few years ago we faced a turning point in how we approached staff based training. The challenge was to manage our limited educator resources so we could provide training to more than 2500 nursing staff that worked 24/7.  This scenario is not unusual, it’s probably the same at every hospital, but what’s encouraging is how we were able to turn things around with web-based training.

When we first started to explore web-based training, the nursing department had been struggling for a long time to manage the challenge of providing ongoing education to close to 2500 nurses. Our educators were struggling to get through the essentials while at the same time trying to squeeze in opportunities for mentoring, observation and hands-on practice. Everything managed to get done but the process was far from ideal and certainly not efficient.

The decision to use eLearning was not a simple one. Web-based training is expensive. We established an inter-disciplinary task force who evaluated the pros and cons and made recommendations that guided our solution. We had to become familiar with new technologies, hire staff who knew all about developing web-based courses and of course, roll out the change to our educators and nursing staff. We encountered a number of challenges along the way but now, a few years later we couldn’t imagine what we could do without it.

Elearning has become an essential part of our staff training. We’ve increased the reach of our learning, been able to provide staff with easy access to a large variety of courses and built quick and easy reports that show our administrators our training accomplishments at the click of a button. Elearning has moved our education delivery model into the future and we’re just getting started.

Learn more about elearning in Nursing at UHN at http://www.uhn.ca/About_UHN/nursing/site/education/elearning/staff_training.asp

Meet Anya Wood, UHN eLearning Education Manager http://www.uhn.ca/About_UHN/nursing/site/video/09_11_30eLearning.wmv

Research: Critical Care Mentoring Study

Submitted by: Cathy Johnson, Project Manager Nursing Informatics and Carolyn Plummer, Project Manager, Innovation

Last week a very special event took place here at UHN, nurses participating in the Critical Care Mentoring Study held an open house.  The open house was held over a two day period and provided participants with an opportunity to share the results of their achievements.

Over the past few years, nursing leaders at UHN noticed a decline in morale and staff satisfaction in the ICUs as well as an increase in vacancies.  It was time to look for innovative ideas to address these issues. At the same time there was an increased interest in hiring new graduate nurses into the ICU environments – something that had not been done in the past.

The Critical Care Mentoring Study combined components of the highly successful humanbecoming/80-20 professional development model with a mentoring program.  The study funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care paired 11 experienced critical care nurses with 11 new graduate nurses who were interested in working in a critical care environment.  Each pair of nurses–mentor and protégé–attended structured teaching-learning sessions and developed an innovation project which they then presented at the open house.

To learn more about this innovative initiative contact Carolyn Plummer, Project Manager, Innovation at carolyn.plummer@uhn.on.ca

Transplant Nurses Have Big Hearts

When major flooding happened in the Philippines, the nurses from the Toronto General Hospital (TGH) Multiple Organ Transplant Unit (MOTU) just knew they had to help.   The country first experienced flooding during Tropical Storm Kelsana in late September.  Days later, the flooding became much worse when Typhoon Parma hit the northern coast. 

 Members of the MOTU staff, some of whom have family members in the Philippines, decided to organize a fundraiser to assist with the relief efforts.  “We were all very touched by the tragedy in the Philippines” stated Allen, a staff nurse on the MOTU. 

A number of the nurses from the MOTU organized a food and clothing drive and called it ‘TGH Helps’.  The one day drive was held on Monday October 5^th. The MOTU staff spent the week before the drive advertising the event through word of mouth, the Corporate Intranet and pamphlets distributed throughout the organization. During the days leading up to the event the nurses would go floor to floor to talk about the food and clothing drive and remind staff to bring in non-perishable food items or clothing to donate.

The morning of Monday October 5^th was bright and sunny, a good omen.  The nurses parked a van in the driveway at the front doors of the Toronto General Hospital.  Decorated with a huge banner that stated ‘TGH Helps’ the nurses collected donations as staff arrived or were leaving the hospital.  They started at 06:30 in the morning and did not finish until 07:00 that evening.  In no time at all the van was full and throughout the day they filled two additional cars.  Allen was amazed at the number of donations they received “The response of our UHN colleagues was overwhelming”.

     

All donations were given to the Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Toronto.  The church in collaboration with several other organizations will be sending a container with the donations to the Philippines in mid October. 

Congratulations to the MOTU Nurses- Allen, John, Jovita, Derek, Rosemarie, Gloria and Chantelle- for organizing such a successful food and clothing drive and thank you to all staff who stopped by to donate!!!!

Submitted by: Cathy Johnson, Project Manager, Nursing Informatics

UHN Nursing: A Little Bit About Us……Nursing Research

I thought that this week I would share with you a little bit about us-something about Nursing Research.  I think that nurses are some of the most creative and innovative people I know. Nurses often have great ideas for improving care delivery or enhancing patient-centred care and yet sometimes do not act on them fearing that their voices will not be heard or appreciated. 

UHN is committed to excellence in patient-centred care and supports many ongoing nursing research projects that originate at the bedside. Each year funding is allocated for nursing research so that nurses can pursue research projects that will increase nursing knowledge, improve patient care and improve the quality of work-life.

The UHN Research Challenge is held annually usually in January.  Every nursing unit is invited to send a group of nurses to two workshops (one 2-day proposal writing workshop and one follow-up/presentation day), during which nurses will have an opportunity to learn about various research methods and be challenged to select a topic to study that is relevant to their practice area.  The nurses have a month to develop their proposals which they present to the group.  The nurses that have the most developed proposal receive funding and mentoring to implement their proposed research.  This year 6 groups of nurses mostly staff nurses won awards to pursue their research. 

There are many other exciting and innovative nursing research projects happening here at UHN which I promise to share with you in future posts to this blog.

Welcome to UHN Nursing!

It’s an exciting time to be a nurse.  There always seems to be something new in the profession such as innovations in nursing practice, new ideas and concepts resulting from nursing research, engaging educational initiatives and technologic advances to assist us in providing the best possible care for our patients. Sometimes we hear about these things through traditional means such as print media, other times through the grapevine or via the web.   The UHN Nursing blog has been created to share information and new knowledge, inform our colleagues about UHN Nursing activities, as well as foster a sense of nursing community. 

 A bit about UHN Nursing……..we are a large, academic healthcare organization comprised of three hospitals in downtown Toronto.  We are affiliated with the University of Toronto as well as several other academic centres in the city.  Led by a strong nursing leadership team, there are over 3,000 nurses working in a variety of nursing roles at UHN.  There are many opportunities at UHN for nurses.  Diverse areas of practice (as one of my colleagues used to say you can work your entire career here and never get bored), innovative educational initiatives and interesting opportunities for nursing research thrive here.  One of the highlights of UHN Nursing is our patient centred approach to caring for patients and families. Our professional practice model puts patients first, and provides a foundation for excellence in patient care, research and education.

Hi, my name is Cathy Johnson and I work in Nursing Informatics. I‘ve been working with communications and web based technologies in nursing at UHN for a number of years now. There are always interesting things happening in Nursing at UHN but sometimes I don’t hear about them until long after they have happened (and then I think-how did I miss that and if I’ve missed it-did others miss it as well and how can we better communicate what we do?).

I am hoping that with this blog we can share some of the interesting and innovative nursing initiatives that happen at UHN-believe me there are always lots of new and interesting things happening here.