From policy to practice: Provincial outreach to optimize the Clinical Nurse Specialist workforce in British Columbia
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Year 2024Type Reach Awards
- Principal investigator Sandra Lauck
- Co-lead(s) Leah Lambert, BC Cancer
- Host institution University of British Columbia
- Research location University of British Columbia - Vancouver Campus
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Team members
- Leah Lambert, BC Cancer
- Sally Thorne, University of British Columbia
- Fushia Howard, University of British Columbia
- Natasha Prodan-Bhalla, Provincial Health Services Authority
- Kevin Hare, BC Cancer Becky Palmer, Providence Health Care
- Jagbir Kaur, BC Cancer
- Erin Tang, Providence Health Care
- Sherri Kensall, Canadian Clinical Nurse Specialist Association
- Angela Wignall, Canadian Nurses Association
- Connie Clark, University of British Columbia
- Alayna Payne, Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia
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Partner(s)
BC Cancer Foundation
Nurses spend the most time with patients and caregivers. More than other professions, nurses have been negatively affected by the health human resource crisis. In BC, there is an urgent need to retain and recruit nursing talent and expertise.
We now have new knowledge about what is needed to strengthen the impact of Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs), advanced practice nurses with graduate education and specialized clinical expertise. CNSs are nursing leaders who use their clinical knowledge and leadership to improve both patient outcomes and how healthcare operates overall. The role of CNSs in BC is underdeveloped and significantly underutilized. This is why we recently completed a BC-based study with nurses and leaders to create policy recommendations and action plans to help strengthen and better support the CNS role across BC.
The goal of this project is to extend the reach of this important evidence. We will (1) create a “BC CNS Workforce Toolkit” that includes the new consensus policy recommendations, and (2) hold a series of implementation workshops with high impact stakeholder. We also aim to increase the knowledge translation skills of BC nurses to help address the challenges of the healthcare staffing crisis.