Integrated Model of Knowledge Building and Utilization for Clinical Nurses

Heather Campbell, College of Nurses of Ontario; Lianne Jeffs, St. Michael's Hospital; Deborah Tregunno, School of Nursing, York University, Canada

Nursing is an information-intensive practice discipline, thus creating and working with knowledge is key to the delivery of safe and effective care. Traditionally, nursing education has adopted a behaviorist approach that values the technical aspects of work. Within this model, the pedagogical approach separates out what nurses know theoretically and practically, emphasizing the mastery of tasks through application of skills and procedures. However, in the current environment of evidence based practice, an integrated model of knowledge building and utilization activities that is embedded into the daily activities of clinical nurses is required. In this context, this symposium will provide a description of the design, implementation, evaluation and lessons learned associated with three knowledge building action learning projects designed for clinical nurses (i.e. College of Nurses’ Knowledge Translation Fellowship, Nursing Research Advancing Practice Program, and Interprofessional Transfer of Accountability Knowledge Translation). As part of the symposium, participants will gain further insight into the challenges associated with developing nurses as knowledge workers in three complex nursing settings and the trade –offs between traditional and innovative approaches to knowledge building and utilization. Participants will engage in an interactive dialogue with presenters to: a) explore relevance of the findings associated with each project; 2) develop further strategies to promote nurses as knowledge workers; 3) share lessons learned about evaluating such initiatives and the complexities inherent in attempting to assess the implicit-explicit conversion of tacit knowledge; and 4) provide direction for further research to advance the capacity of nurses to working in a Knowledge Age.