Evidence translation and change | Nursing | Chamberlain College of Nursing

Diabetes Mellitus is chosen as a selected problem for promoting a better patient outcome and improve the standard of care since this is a chronic condition and has long-term effects that cause an increase in mortality rate. Evidence is one of the keys to providing a vision on the ways to improve the quality of care and bridging the knowledge gap.

The first common barriers to evidence translation in addressing this practice problem is knowledge and awareness. Patients should get an education on keeping the blood sugar levels on target and be aware of the ways of keeping track of their blood glucose levels. On the other hand, it is also important for the health care professional to have adequate knowledge of providing diabetic education for the patient during discharge to prevent readmission. Skills are necessary for the patients who are discharged and need insulin administration and therefore if the patient is not practiced in skills it can lead to uncontrolled diabetes and patients often get readmitted with the complications associated with diabetes mellitus. Acceptance and beliefs could be one of the barriers which are in the patients as well as with the health care professionals. Patients with a multicultural background with certain beliefs often practice herbal medicines or any traditional methods to control blood sugar which causes a drug to drug interactions. To accept a new change is difficult for the patient and therefore will see fewer effects in controlling blood sugar levels. Health care professionals should collaborate with the diabetic educators and should bring new practices based on new evidence.

The strategies which we can apply in this practice problem could be first with an Inter-Professional Collaboration (IPC) with the stakeholders specifically with the diabetic educator. Interprofessional collaboration is the key to attain the goal specifically for chronic care conditions which includes diabetes mellitus. According to Van, D. G et al,. (2020), IPC between physicians, physicians’ trainees, nurses which includes senior staff nurses, and diabetic educators has provided a better training program that helps the patient to improve their diabetic health. Stakeholders can be well engaged for further exploration by sharing the information, gathering the research and evidence, consultation, participation, and collaboration (White, K. M et al,. 2016).

To determine which evidence to implement is the most challenging implementation, however, it is also important to get the evidence and follow the interventions based on the purpose and outcome of the interventions.  The research data would provide the evidence on a practice which is followed and so the first vital source is finding out the research questions and the outcome. The two most important diabetic intervention includes diet and exercises in different forms such as aerobic, tai chi, yoga, swimming.

Change is not easy and if a change has happened, I believe the appropriate rational and a tentative outcome is essential to be informed for creating team effort and motivation. To determine continuity and sustainability of the change, the DNP scholar should assess the educational programs and should promote adequate resource to educational meetings, team huddle to assess the pros and cons, meetings and getting opinion with the nurse leaders, clinical audit and feedback is also needed and provide complete information on the new evidence provided (Dang, et al. 2018)

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