Nursing research
Our mission is to support the delivery of optimal patient care at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Allina Health through clinical inquiry, discovery and the integration of new discoveries into clinical practice. The focus of our investigator-initiated nursing research targets clinical phenomenon that influence patient safety, nursing satisfaction and quality of life. By exploring and addressing issues from a multi-factor approach including the individual, family, professional, system and environment perspective; nursing research provides a unique contribution to the discovery and integration of advances in patient care.
Nursing research at Abbott Northwestern Hospital supports the process of clinical inquiry throughout all the phases including problem identification, scoping the problem, enlisting study investigators, literature review and synthesis, study design, analytic plan, budget planning, funding sources and dissemination plans. Patient safety is a main focus of nursing research at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. We use a variety of clinical inquiry methods including: quality improvement, evidence based practice, and collaborative and independent research.
Independent and Collaborative Nursing Research
Our Independent and Collaborative Nursing Research Studies are dedicated to discovering new knowledge to advance nursing practice and fill in knowledge gaps. Current research topics include:
- Improving well-being of nurses using acute incident impact debriefing, reflection, and connection
- Identifying the scope of weight bias among women’s health care clinicians
- Deconditioning prevention for the medically ill older adult
- Fall risk prediction in the acute rehabilitation setting
- Toilet aerosol measurement to understand of the potential risk of infection and hazardous drug transmission
Evidence-Based Practice Scholar Program
The Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Nursing Clinical Scholars Program, made possible with the generous support of the Allina Health Foundation, is a collaboration between Abbott Northwestern Hospital and St. Catherine University DNP students and faculty. This is a 11-month program for clinical nurses to learn the process of creating and conducting an evidence-based practice project.
Projects include:
- Providing universal trauma-informed care in The Mother-Baby Center
- Detecting pressure injuries sooner with subepidermal moisture scanning
- Improving de-escalation techniques among medical-surgical nurses
- Liberating ICU patients from mechanical ventilation sooner
- Reducing idle peripheral IVs
- Reducing delirium in telemetry inpatients
Allina Health and University of Minnesota School of Nursing Collaboratory
In 2023, Allina Health and the University of Minnesota School of Nursing entered into a formal academic-practice partnership, or collaboratory, to generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge for the improvement of nursing practice, education, and patient outcomes. The collaboratory serves as an incubator for creativity and innovation. It aims to develop new strategies to enhance nursing education and professional development, research, practice, diversity, inclusion and equity, and recruit top talent into nursing. According to an American Association of Colleges of Nursing and American Organization for Nursing Leadership task force, academic-practice partnerships such as the collaboratory are “an important mechanism to strengthen nursing practice and help nurses become well-positioned to lead change and advance health.”
Patients and study participants
Our nursing research team, in collaboration with other research teams within Allina Health, conducts studies with both patient and staff participants. We work diligently to ensure all research activities are ethical, safe and rigorous. We take various measures to protect study participant safety and all of our projects get the appropriate level of approval from Allina Health’s Institutional Review Board.
Patients must give their permission to participate in a research study—participation is strictly voluntary. If a participant wishes, they may revoke their consent at any time during a study. Prior to all studies, volunteers must meet specific criteria. These include factors such as gender, age and health status. These criteria are to ensure the safety of all participants and make certain that researchers will be able to answer questions that may be presented.
Being a participant in a research study is a unique opportunity. You can be an active participant in healthcare and benefit others by contributing to the ways we care for patients as well as our nurses.
Our research team
Stephanie W. Edmonds, PhD, MPH, RN
Principal research scientist, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, part of Allina Health
stephanie.edmonds@allina.com