Samantha Heath

UNE Nursing Student

Category: Collaboration

Presenting Change

December 14, 2022 /
CLABSI-Prevention-BrochureDownload

I brought our project to our floor at Maine Medical Center. I spoke with the charge nurse on R2 and explained that we had done a dissemination project about preventing CLABSI infections and that our project was for our evidenced based practice class at UNE. She said our project looked amazing and took the copies to put up in a few spots where the nurses could see them. She said that the infographics would catch people’s attention and nurses would love to read it.  Nurses on that floor are always so supportive and happy to learn new things so they were excited to see new posters. CLABSI prevention is something that is talked about so frequently in hospitals that anyone would be interested to know some statistics about them and the best ways to prevent the infections. 

I loved working with my team because we always supported each other at clinical and always made the best out of our time together. We made sure that all of our work was done successfully for this class and helped each other whenever we needed. I would want future employers to know that we took the time to educate ourselves about successful evidence based practice initiatives for quality improvement and we are ready to enter the nursing world. We are ready to recognize when change could occur and help implement change for the good whenever possible. Medicine is always changing and no one is too small to voice their opinions if change needs to happen. The thing that this team helped me out with a lot was making sure to get work done early. I get stuck in passing things in right on time but my group really worked on getting our projects and stuff done well before the due date so that we could take the time to double check that we did it to the best of our ability and are ready to pass it in. 

After working on this project and completing both EBP I and EBP III, I feel confident in my abilities to research healthcare topics and figuring out places in which change needs to occur and doing my research successfully. I know where to look for peer reviewed evidence based practice journal articles that are reliable, within the past five years, and have pertinent information to the topic that I am researching. I learned a lot about pulling multiple sources together and coming out with one research project from all the scattered information. 

Proposing Change

November 8, 2022 /
Final-Project-Proposal.docx-3Download

When working on this project, we learn a lot about central line associated bloodstream infection prevention. Through many sources we learned about how diligent aseptic technique, chlorhexidine or isopropyl alcohol caps on the hubs, scrubbing the hub and maintaining adequate hand hygiene are extremely important. The correct way to clean the hub of a central line would be: performing adequate hand hygiene, putting on clean or sterile gloves, using chlorhexidine or 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes to scrub the hub for at least 15 seconds while using a twisting motion, allowing the hub to dry, and placing a new cap on the hub after use. 

I have performed this technique a few times while administering medications through an IV hub and I was  familiar with the steps. Before creating this project proposal I did not know any specific statistics about CLABSIs, but now I know more. Such as, there is a thirteen times higher risk for developing infection on hubs that did not get a chlorhexidine or isopropyl alcohol cap placed on the hub because the  cap decreases infection risk greatly by protecting the hub and providing antimicrobial protection with the chlorhexidine or isopropyl alcohol. Knowing these statistics, I will never forget to scrub the hub of a central line or any IV line and then replace the cap with a brand new one after each time. 

Our team always works together so well. Today we did our whole brochure within an hour and it looks incredible. We are  good at supporting each other and are not afraid to speak up if something doesn’t look right or needs to be changed. The only revising we needed to do on our proposal is being a bit more specific about a few topics, but overall it was really good. Our team process is to just jump into things and help out wherever you are able to. We have not had any challenges so far because we all respect each other greatly and recognize that all of us are smart and have important opinions and ideas. 

Planning Change

September 25, 2022 /

I anticipate this project going really well because my clinical group works together really smoothly and successfully. Even though I have only spent a couple days of clinical and one day of simulation with my clinical group, we have gotten pretty close. We have already navigated ways to work with each other in the most successful ways possible. Whenever one of us needs help with a patient, needs help remembering a skill, remembering a med, or remembering where things are on the floor, anyone in the group is always willing to help. I do not anticipate us having problems with working as a collaborative team.

We created a group chat with everyone in our group and will check on each other’s progress throughout the timeframe of this project and through each task we need to complete. We have agreed to be open and honest with each other if problems arise, be respectful, and to speak up if something is bothering one of us. I do not anticipate us running into any barriers, but if we were to, it might be finding time to work on the project together. Teamwork is a skill that can always be practiced in order to be more successful in our future careers. Practicing researching skills will also be so helpful for us in clinical practice because medicine and healthcare is changing everyday and there is always room for more research and improvements.

Final Reflection

May 3, 2022 /

Annie and I chose this topic because it was something that we have thought about and wondered about before. As a woman I have always thought breastfeeding was a beautiful thing and often heard about mothers that had difficulties with it. I wondered how the alternatives to breast milk compared to it and we thought that it would be the perfect topic for this paper. 

We learned how to find articles that met up to verification standards and that had information that would specifically apply to our topic and question. We then analyzed the journal articles and pulled the most important and relevant information from all of the research and were able to compare outcomes from each source.

Working in a team was great  because we split the work perfectly and really bounced ideas off each other in order to write the best paper we could. We worked really well at reminding each other about due dates and reminding each other what sections  of the work each of us needed to complete and it was always so respected both ways.

Appraisal and synthesis

April 12, 2022 /

For our topic, we were interested in studying the differences between formula feeding and  pumped breast milk feeding when providing nutrition to premature infants. After researching our topic we realized that the bigger topic of discussion is how donor breast milk performs when put up against a mother’s own breast milk or formula feeding. These findings did not change our assumptions, but they did open our eyes to a problem mothers are currently facing if they are unable to produce breast milk or if the infants lost their mother. I think this topic is really important and interesting to study because mainstream media is never  focused on helping new mothers out and  they often feel lost and ostracized. This research can help put  some mothers’ minds at ease if it is proven that donor breast milk helps the premature infants just as much as the other two options. My teammate and I work very well together and have gone through some tough things including sickness and have managed to stay on track. 

From Inquiry through Discovery

February 28, 2022 /

We revised it a small amount and changed it from bottle feeding to formula feeding to use the correct terminology and changed it from breastfeeding to pumped breast milk. We also switched it from measuring the babies’ nutrition to measuring adequate nutrition intake to make it more specific. Some challenges that I experienced were that I am very used to finding research articles to back scientific theses and not for PICOT questions. I was finding articles that were not specific enough for evidence based practice. I understand this concept a lot more now about how the articles need to specifically back up the topic that you are researching for it to be considered evidence based practice. We solved the problem by communicating with each other and with our professor to figure out where we were going wrong with our searches. Some successes our team has experienced is that Annie and I work really well together and come up with great ideas. We both think that this topic is really interesting and are excited to see how we can formulate our paper based off of the research from the three articles.

Planning the Journey

February 6, 2022 /

I anticipate this project going really well. Our topic is something I have actually wondered about before and I am excited to see through research what we find out. Annie and I work really well together and even though we do not have other team members, it will be really easy to split the work 50/50. We have communicated well through email and in class and have supported each other in accomplishing tasks well. We agreed that we would split the work in half and have finished everything early so far so not finishing things on time should not be an issue, but if it becomes one we will be able to communicate about it. I think barriers may just be busy since we are both nursing students, but getting work done while busy is  a really important school for nursing because nurses are constantly on the go and have many things they have to remember to do at once. Nurses are the kings and queens of multitasking!

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