Prior to the alignment of Ascension’s clinical education function under the national CPD department, each Ministry independently supported clinical education causing significant variability in access to education resources and learning quality across our national ministry. One of the benefits of the national alignment of CPD is the reduction education disparity. Through a recent Master Agreement and national enterprise license awarded to EBSCO Health, Ascension clinicians will now have instant access to the most current evidence-based answers to clinical questions, at the point of care. This agreement now provides a solution for 84 sites of care that previously had no access to a point of care tool, and ensures access for all acute and ambulatory sites of care.
Historically, about 68% of Ascension’s acute care facilities - 75 of 110 measured - enjoyed access to a clinical reference point of care tool for nursing, with unknown usage available to ambulatory facilities. The implementation of the new EBSCO enterprise license to Nursing Reference Center™ Plus, an evidence-based information resource designed by nurses for nurses, expands access to 100% of Ascension’s acute and ambulatory facilities.
The Clinical Professional Development team is currently working with EBSCO and Ascension Technologies to implement intuitive access to the tool with an aim to provide caregivers with improved access to clinical reference resources at the point of care, and to reduce healthcare disparities. Incumbent users of Nursing Reference Center may continue to use their products under the new enterprise license. New users are encouraged to explore Nursing Reference Center Plus with respect for current workflow as they await national implementation.
- Access the tool here and save the link as a favorite in your web browser.
- Support – Comprehensive health ministry support such as training, product communications, or workflow conversion is forthcoming and will be scheduled by the CPD team. For immediate support, please contact Tom Kalla of The Resource Group Implementation Team.
The CPD national team, in collaboration with The Resource Group, is now working to identify standard resources for automated management of behavior based competencies through suppliers and products that compliment EBSCO’s Nursing Reference Center™ Plus. The team is also aware of the need for point of care references focused on Allied Health and will continue to discover the capabilities of Nursing Reference Center™ Plus and develop new solutions for these needs.
[This article originally appeared in The Ascension Clinical Professional Development Today Newsletter, September 2018 edition.]
Link to Nursing Reference Center-Plus.
More details to come as implementation progresses. We are working diligently to get this point-of-care tool integrated into the local intranets, library pages, and EHRs. Training will also be part of the roll-out. If you can't wait, go ahead and start exploring NRC-Plus.
