Nursing Policy and Procedure Committee

renerian, BSN, RN · Jan 20, 2003

I was in home health and I was not paid for much of the time I spent on research.

At the hospital I came from to climb the clinical ladder you needed to be on some committee and the time in the meetings was compensated but none of your research time was.

renerian

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 20, 2003

You do research for P&P in ways similar to those you used to prepare student papers. You go to the library and evaluate the literature on the topic. For P&P writing, you also need to be sure your recommendations are consistent with the national standards of any professional organization that relates to the topic. Finallly, you have to consider any legal and financial ramifications. In other words, you have to be sure that the nurse and the hospital both have the a**** covered at all times. Those P&P's get used as evidence in law suits.

As a student, you may only have looked at a couple of articles to write a paper. That's a good start for writing P&P, but you have to go farther. With real patients, real nurses, and real money on the line ... you really need to do the job right. There are probably experienced P&P writers at your hospital who can help you get started and show you how your particular hospital likes it done.

Good luck! Writing P&P's is a somewhat "thankless" task that is often not a lot of fun. But it IS important.

llg

adrienurse, LPN · Jan 20, 2003

Thanks llg. So many people in the committee are just satisfied with using Potter and Perry's Fundamentals of Nursing as their reference.

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 20, 2003

Yes, that's sort of thing happens at all hospitals. It's sad that people often won't make the effort to go a little farther. However, what some hospitals do seems like a good idea to me. They pick a comprehensive textbook as their primary reference (hopefully, one that gets updated regularly) and then only write P&P to cover things not in the book ... or things that they want to do differently from the book.

That seems reasonable to me. They still keep up with the current literature and the national standards ... but they let the authors and editors of the book cover most of the basics that aren't rapidly changing.

llg

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Jan 20, 2003

Agree with llg.

Also, Take advantage of your hospitals librarian! They will de a search for you on a topic you submit and even make suggestions on literature /books they saw. This is something I miss in homecare.