Practice council brings systemwide OB collaboration

How can Asante birth centers all offer the same excellent care using nursing best practices? Thanks to our systemwide practice council, we do it through collaboration.

The Asante OB Evidence-Based Practice Council, led by OB clinical practice adviser Laura Stone, involves frontline OB nurses from each hospital, OB nursing leaders and staff development specialists who are working together to establish a standard level of care.

The team is made up largely of nurses with many years of experience. It also is adding members who are either new to nursing or new to OB and want to grow in their own nursing practice. The council exists to promote excellence in clinical practice through the delivery of standardized evidence-based care throughout Asante.

After years of working through challenges to gain momentum, the council now has a lot to be proud of. The team currently is evaluating entity-specific policies that can be expanded to all three hospitals, bringing additional resources to those patients and teams.

In future work, the council is looking to expand its influence and become a resource for other service lines. There also are opportunities to mentor frontline staff on conducting literature research, an important nursing skill to have when advocating for change.

“I am so proud to work with such an amazing team of nurses who collaborate,” Laura said. “We encounter very similar issues at each facility and being able to meet and discuss possible solutions together is very rewarding.”

These are bedside nurses who, on top of their regular working hours and responsibilities, want to invest more time perfecting their nursing practice and the practice of their units, Laura adds. They have a deeper understanding of the “why” behind what we do. They advocate for their patients and their teams by promoting safety and streamlining processes. Bedside staff are the key stakeholders as they are the ones moving through the actions and guidelines laid out in policy.

To be sure, standardization can bring challenges. A pregnant mother who delivers at Asante should receive the same great care at any of our family birth centers. Yet each facility has its own unique culture and resources, and not everything can be easily simplified into a one-size-fits-all policy.

To tackle these challenges, the council collaborates by looking through the literature and balancing best practices with the values held by the communities we serve. The team can then formulate a policy that meets both of those needs.

Systemwide collaboration increases nursing engagement and allows the bedside staff to have input, make change, and advocate for their teams and patients. For nurses looking to grow in their knowledge base and make change, participation in the various nursing councils is a great opportunity.