CSI grant engages KC nurses

Nurses in St. Luke’s Hospital’s med/surg unit do not investigate crime scenes, but they are part of a CSI team.

The Bi-State Nursing Workforce Innovation Center provided grants for Clinical Scene Investigators projects, referred to as CSI projects.

The center provided the grants through a partnership with the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the REACH Health Care Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Susan Lacey, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, innovation center director, said the grants are intended to engage floor nurses in projects that have organization or patient care outcomes.

“We’re just teaching nurses that the spirit of inquiry is in their DNA,” Lacey said. “We’re really trying to reach out to nurses and say, ‘Hey, you’re the one at the sharp end of stick.’”

The center awarded CSI grants to seven hospitals, each worth $10,000. Participants include Truman Medical Center, Lafayette Regional Health Center, Providence Medical Center, University of Kansas Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, Children’s Mercy Hospital and Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

St. Luke’s on the Plaza used its CSI grant to increase the number of certified med/surg nurses at the hospital. Nurses selected one unit on which to initiate the project.

“We knew that (certification) helped bedside nursing. We knew that it helped with outcomes,” said Andrea Helt, ADN, RN, med/surg staff nurse at St. Luke’s.

Helt and fellow med/surge nurse Jessica Carney, ADN, RN, are two of the nurses in charge of the certification initiative.

Helt said certification has several benefits for nurses and patients.

“It helps nurses’ satisfaction with their jobs,” she said. “They are more confident.”

St. Luke’s used the CSI grant money to allow nurses to take a review class before the certification test, purchase study books and pay test fees. The test costs $255 to take.

St. Luke’s has had 10 med/surg nurses take the test since the initiative began; all of them passed. There are 11 nurses scheduled to take the test in May.

“It was pretty easy to find the 11,” Carney said. “It’s becoming the culture now.”

Currently, 34 percent of the nurses in St. Luke’s med/surg unit are certified, which exceeds the Magnet benchmark of 33 percent.

Nurses are now eager to take the exam, Helt said.

“We’re going to try to take (the initiative) hospital wide,” Carney said.

Clinical educator specialist Ashley Peacock, BSN, RN, BC, said the certification initiative develops nurses in ways that extend beyond the knowledge required to pass.

“It’s not just what they bring to the bedside. It’s what they bring to the unit as leaders,” Peacock said.

Nurses involved in the St. Luke’s CSI project will present their progress to nurses and other CSI participants at the Bi-State Nursing Workforce Innovation Conference Sept. 10.

Lacey said she looks forward to the St. Luke’s presentation.

“Credentialing is very, very important,” she said. “A more confident nurse is a more secure nurse.”

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