2006-2007 Awards Program for Innovation in Nursing Human Resources

Our Past / Annual Reports

The 2006 Awards Program for Innovation in Nursing Human Resources is a joint project between The Change Foundation and the Nursing Secretariat of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, building on the success of the 2004 open competition for innovative nursing projects to improve nursing practice. The province provided funding for projects and knowledge transfer, and The Change Foundation provided the infrastructure to implement the program.

This year's focus is on innovations around nursing human resources. Some of the sub-themes of this competition are improving the safety of nurses, supporting healthy work environments, and designing nursing practice to meet changing needs. The call also invited the previous Nursing Initiative Teams to apply for bridge funding to help them move their change initiative towards sustainability and/or to implement it more broadly.

Like the first competition, this one was also a two-tier peer-reviewed competition. In the requests for proposals and letters of intent, a volunteer review committee of experts from across the province and across health-care sectors looked for evidence of innovation, relevance, feasibility, transferability, and sustainability. Six proposed projects were funded to develop, implement, evaluate, and transfer the learning to practice over the next two years. The winning teams, below, were announced by Foundation Board member Gail Donner at the Nursing Leadership Conference on March 28, 2007.

Photo: Gail Donner, left, chair of the review committee for the 2006-07 Awards Program for Innovation in Nursing Human Resources, and Change Foundation CEO Cathy Fooks, right, with award recipients, left to right: Mary Lou King, Denise Bryant-Lukosius, Dyanne Semogas, Heather Ferries, Cathy Bally, Monica Parry.

Recipients	McMaster University and its partners: Cancer Care Ontario; Juravinski Cancer Program at Hamilton Health Sciences; Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Program at the Sudbury Regional Hospital; and the School of Nursing at Laurentian University.
Project	"Increasing Capacity of the Effective Implementation of Advanced Practice Roles for Under-serviced Populations: A Collaborative Facilitative Approach"
Purpose	It addresses provincial priorities to improve the use of oncology Advanced Practice Nurses roles by: developing and evaluating tools to support role implementation; applying systematic frameworks; and using collaborative strategies to engage stakeholders in APN role development and evaluation. The project will take place in one southern and one northern cancer setting. Well-designed APN roles will lead to improved patient, provider, and health system outcomes.
Primary Investigator	Dr. Denise Bryant-Lukosius, Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing, McMaster University

Recipients	Ontario Poison Centre of the Hospital for Sick Children and its partner The Knowledge Media Design Institute of the University of Toronto.
Project	"Development of a Distance Education Model for Nurses"
Purpose	It will develop, implement and evaluate a distance education program to successfully recruit and retain nurses. It has the potential to serve as a model for education of remote health-care providers in all sectors of the health-care system.
Primary Investigator	Heather Ferries, Advanced Nursing Practice Educator, Poison Information Centre of the Hospital for Sick Children.

Recipients	Kingston General Hospital and its partner Queen's University
Project	"Work and Health: Optimizing Nurses' Physical Health in Hospital Work Environments"
Purpose	It is designed to support healthy work environments for nurses by optimizing individual nurses' nutrition and activity balance and to increase the health characteristics of unit work environments. Clinical nurse champions from six units at two hospital sites will lead this strategy, in consultation with physical health experts, researchers and nurse leaders.
Primary Investigator	Kathy Bally, Clinical Educator of the Cardiac Unit of the Kingston General Hospital

Recipients	University of Western Ontario and its partner University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Project	"A Critical Care Bridging Program: From proof of Concept to Sustainable Education/ Practice Exemplar"
Purpose	It is bridge funding aimed at moving a previously implemented pilot project towards sustainability. The team will conduct a follow-up study to assess the impact of a critical care bridging program offered to pre-graduate nursing students. The project will prepare pre-graduates with competitive skills to secure jobs of choice and enhance the practice readiness of new graduates. It also provides leadership support, opportunities, and rewards for expert front-line nurses.
Primary Investigator	Dr. Mary Lou King, Assistant professor, School of Nursing, University of Western Ontario.

Recipients	McMaster University and its partners Ottawa Inner City Health Inc., Hamilton Shelter Health Network, and Public Health Information and Information Technology office of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care
Project	"Creating a Virtual Practice Community of Nurses Who Serve the Homeless"
Purpose	It aims at strengthening intra-professional practice by assisting nurses in connecting with each other, helping them make sense of current practice and research issues and taking leadership roles in delivering the most current and effective health care by creating a virtual practice web-based resource and on-line conferencing community.
Primary Investigator	Dyanne Semogas, Director of Claremont House, Assistant Professor, McMaster University

Recipients	Kingston General Hospital and its partners Providence Continuing Care Centre, South East Community Care Access Centre, Practice and Research in Nursing Group and Queen's Joanna Briggs collaboration, and Queen's University.
Project	"Building A Knowledge-Intense Nursing Workplace Using A Practice Scholarship Program (PSP)"
Purpose	It has a view to develop and evaluate a proactive, interactive and facilitating practice scholarship program to support direct care nurses to acquire and maintain a requisite base of knowledge and skills and to engage in knowledge-based, reflective practice activities.
Primary Investigator	Monica Parry, Advanced Practice Nurse, Kingston General Hospital