Background: The clinical nurse leader (CNL) role was developed as a strategy for redesigning care delivery to address quality and safety gaps in health care. However, innovation competencies have never been assessed in this group. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether CNLs have different perceptions of innovation and their own competence to lead it, compared with other nurse leaders. Methods: A web-enabled concurrent mixed-method survey design was used to compare self-reported innovation competencies between nurses in a leadership role and certified CNLs at a large academic medical center. Results: A statistically significant difference between groups was found for only 1 competency, with non-CNLs rating themselves as more competent in the use of unconventional approaches than CNLs. Qualitative data showed wide variation in recognition of innovation and how it is defined. Conclusions: Replication of this study is needed with an increased sample size of CNLs to determine whether curriculum change is needed.

The clinical nurse leader (CNL) role has been cited as an effective strategy for improving care at the microsystem level. The purpose of this article is to describe the use of the CNL role in an academic medical center for evaluating pressure ulcer reporting. The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle was used as the methodological framework for the study. The CNL assessment of pressure ulcers resulted in a 21% to 50% decrease in the number of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers reported in a 3-month time period. The CNL role has potential for improving the validity and reliability of pressure ulcer reporting.

A standardized, multicolored, pictorial Preoperative Patient Medication Instruction Sheet, with patient communication in both verbal/written forms, seems to improve patient medication compliance on the day of surgery. African-Americans, older patients, and those with greater comorbidities may require a more concerted effort to achieve an adequate preoperative medication compliance.

The rapidly changing healthcare landscape requires continuous innovation by clinicians, yet generating ideas to improve patient care is often problematic. This paper describes the development of a digital tool used in an interprofessional program designed to enhance collaborations between clinicians, undergraduate, and graduate STEM students, particularly biomedical engineering (BME). The program founders began by connecting clinicians and students through a course portal in a learning management system (LMS). They eventually secured internal funding to create an open access tool for posting and viewing problems, allowing interprofessional teams to rally around healthcare challenges and create prototypes for solving them. Results after three years of the program's inception have been encouraging, as teams have created devices and processes that have led to intellectual property disclosures, provisional patents, grant funding, and other productive interprofessional relationships. The open access tool has given clinicians and STEM students an outlet for convenient team formation around unsolved clinical problems and allowed a fluid exchange of ideas between participants across a variety of clinical disciplines.

skilled living involves challenges, specifically increased costs, and stress to those tasked with implementation. Consideration should be given to deploying approaches to decrease the stress on frontline caregivers during implementation. However, those who live within this new model could see additional benefits arise in the day-today quality enhancements through the individualized dining experience, more resident control over choices and routines, and the enhancement of relationships that are not easily measured. Although model implementation is difficult, this case study demonstrates its potential for quality improvement, with less focus on nursing and more focus on living.