Background: Multihospital healthcare system leaders and individual nurses are challenged to integrate standardized evidence-based practices that support continuous performance improvement in their systems.

No abstract

Leaders must see their role as not only facilitators of EBP but also as active participants practicing EBP. Actively engaging leaders in EBP by serving on interprofessional EBP teams and role modeling these behaviors to staff is critical to EBP implementation. Realistic expectations of RNs for EBP implementation and clear and accessible resources may enhance RNs' willingness to implement. Going forward, it may be necessary to differentiate the expectations of RNs in EBP implementation by clarifying expectations in the process of identification and analysis of evidence from use of EBP in clinical practice.

No abstract

In 2020, the Association for Nursing Professional Development commissioned a national preceptor practice analysis study using the Ulrich Precepting Model to identify the roles, knowledge, and activities essential to preceptor practice. In a survey of 3,623 preceptors, the model's seven preceptor roles and their associated domains of knowledge and practice were validated. Findings indicate that nursing professional development practitioners should provide preceptors with initial role preparation in addition to ongoing education. Nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners serve as partners for practice transitions supporting the "transition of nurses and other healthcare team members across learning and practice environments, roles, and professional stages" (Harper & Maloney, 2016, p. 17). Because preceptors are integral to successful transitions, NPD practitioners are responsible for ensuring that individuals are developed for this critical role (Schuelke & Barnason, 2017). Although preceptors are commonly used during transitions, little evidence exists to guide their development. The purpose of this study was to identify the roles and competencies essential to preceptor practice and to validate the seven roles of precepting delineated in the Ulrich Precepting Model (Ulrich, 2019). BACKGROUNDPreceptors are foundational to clinical learning and socialization of healthcare workers who are new to the practice, the organization, or setting. No universally agreed-upon definition of preceptorship or comprehensive operational description of the preceptor process exists in the literature (Ward & McComb, 2017). Ulrich (2019) defines a preceptor as "an individual with demonstrated competence in a specific area who serves as a teacher/coach, leader/influencer, facilitator, evaluator, socialization agent, protector, and role model to develop and validate the competencies of another individual" (p. 1). In nursing, preceptors help students with prelicensure clinical experiences, new nurses transitioning from academia into professional practice, and experienced nurses transitioning from one organization to another, one specialty to another, or one role to another. Precepting is "an organized, evidence-based, outcome-driven approach to ensuring competent practice" (Ulrich, 2019, p. 1).Empirical evidence supports the importance and benefits of preceptors in preparing new and experienced healthcare workers in their roles (