Nursing Interventions Conference Targets Getting the Most from Research Dollars

Professors Sandra Ward (right) and Karin T. Kirchhoff (center) discuss research method and strategy with graduate student Julia Greenleaf at the Center for Patient-Centered Interventions at the UW-Madison School of Nursing.

Getting the best bang for your research buck! This was the thrust of the Nursing Interventions Conference, held September 14 and 15, 2006, at the Hilton Hotel in Madison and sponsored by the Center for Patient-Centered Interventions (CPCI) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing.

“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded a number of centers around the country that focus on intervention research,” says Sandra Ward, PhD, RN, FAAN, Helen Denne Schulte Professor of Nursing, who leads the CPCI in investigating new research strategies to support nursing care that is individualized and patient-centered. “The CPCI wanted to join with faculty from other centers that focus on intervention research in order to find ways to use NIH dollars effectively.”

Having secured $2.8 million in funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), an arm of the NIH, the center supports faculty initiatives to develop customized nursing interventions and pre and postdoctoral study. Researchers’ scope of expertise at the CPCI is extensive, spanning the health of various populations, from teens to elders, to healthy groups seeking to enhance well-being, to individuals facing decisions at end of life.

“At the most general level,” says Ward, “any nursing action could be considered an intervention. Centers that focus on nursing interventions, however, are trying to push nursing science beyond descriptions of problems that patients encounter into testing ways to help solve those problems.”

The mid-September conference joined the center’s cadre of nurse scientists with colleagues at institutions across the country—Johns Hopkins, Yale, University of Iowa, University of Arkansas, and University of Michigan—to generate dialogue surrounding the challenge.

“We want to work better and faster on common concerns regarding the management of centers and systems to develop nursing science that improves patient care,” notes Ward.

Attendees tackled issues such as maintaining the integrity (i.e., consistency) of interventions when multiple sites are involved in a study; defining the framework and main ingredients of interventions by identifying common key components, for example, those that are tailored versus those that are immutable; streamlining the process for recruiting study participants; and soliciting involvement from clinical agencies to expedite recruitment of vulnerable populations.

According to Karin T. Kirchhoff, PhD, RN, FAAN, Rodefer Chair and co-director of the CPCI, conference attendees also identified “experiences that posed problems in our testing of interventions.” Challenges faced in studies that involve seriously ill or dying patients, Kirchhoff notes, serve as examples.

Discussion surrounding centers’ sustainability compelled the group to look at what the NIH and the NINR want from research investigators. One identified expectation was synergy of research initiatives—researchers’ combining of efforts in an area of study rather than working in isolation.

Several manuscripts will emerge from conference discussion about research priority issues, including subject recruitment, consistency of interventions in multi-site trials, best ways to design a study, and research involving frail or vulnerable populations.
Additionally, a list of suggestions on how the NINR can best serve the centers in accomplishing their objectives will be discussed with NINR staff.

“The discussions and networking with colleagues promoted identification of many potential research opportunities, including research collaborations across universities and consultations from leaders in a specific field,” says conference participant Kimberlee Gretebeck, PhD, MSN, faculty member at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“What stood out in my mind,” notes Dorothy Lanuza, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor of nursing at UW-Madison, “were the commonly shared research problems and issues and the generosity with which the participants offered their ideas and resources.”

“Of significance,” adds Ward, “is that a network of colleagues has been solidified.”