Overview

Editors

Professor Mary Chiarella
Founder Modelling of Care Project, School of Nursing University of Sydney, Australia

Dr Vicki Parker
Co Chair Modelling of Care Reference Group, Hunter New England Area Health Service, University of Newcastle

Karen Patterson
Co Chair Modelling of Care Reference Group, South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service, Nursing and Midwifery Directorate, Sydney, Australia

Guest Editor

Professor Judith Lathlean
School of Health, University of Southhampton, UK

In the current climate of staff shortage, scarce resources and increasing demand for service, nurses are continually challenged to review and revise practice to ensure best practice in the specific local context.

The NSW Models of Care Project identified numerous examples of how nurses have modelled creative adaptive innovation that has impacted significantly on patients and staff. Many of these initiatives remain unacknowledged and unavailable for adoption beyond their geographical and clinical contexts.

This special issue seeks to redress this shortfall by sharing and celebrating the work of the wider nursing community both internationally and across Australia; providing a forum for various perspectives about the issues, challenges and directions that impact on nurses and their ability to lead practice change from a ward or unit based, patient oriented perspective.

This issue is characterised by a strong problem solving approach to practice change or service re-design in a localised context with the aim of facilitating wider adoption of these initiatives. As such it is a valuable resource for nurses and midwives in all clinical specialities and across all health care contexts from nurse managers, educators and academics in partnership with clinicians.

In fact this special issue is vital reading for anyone who recognizes the value of understanding and implementing the innovative work of the nursing community in modeling impactful change in nursing care.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Mary Chiarella, Vicki Parker, Karen Patterson
Guest editorial
Judith Lathlean
The 'difficult' nurse patient relationship; development and evaluation of an e-learning package
Scott Brunero, Scott Lamont
Clinicians' experiences of participating in an action research study
Pui Ling (Iris) Li, Leanne Bashford, Greg Schwager, Rhonda Spain, Helen Ryan, Melissa Oakman, Joanne Firth, Mathew Lockyer, Debbie Harper, Isabel Higgins
Beyond ‘doing': Supporting clinical leadership and nursing practice in aged care through innovative models of care
Lorraine Venturato, Liz Drew
Doing clinical research: the challenges and benefits
Isabel Higgins, Vicki Parker, Diana Keatinge, Michelle Giles, Rhonda Winskill, Eileen Guest, Elizabeth Kepreotes, Caroline Phelan 
Exemplar: Our shared experience of implementing action learning sets in an acute clinical nursing setting: Approach taken and lessons learned
Ketty Rivas, Suzanne Murray
Plotting care: A modelling technique for visioning nursing practice in current and future contexts
Cheryle Moss, Ken Walsh, Jacquie Mitchell
Changing model of nursing care from individual patient allocation to team nursing in the acute inpatient environment
Greg Fairbrother, Aaron Jones, Ketty Rivas
An innovative approach to targeting pain in older people in the acute care setting
Caroline Phelan, Isabel Higgins, Peter Summons, Fiona Hodson, Jeanene Douglas, Pauline M Dobson, Debbie Bruce, Glody Mabbott, Linda Ritchard
Improving the safety and efficacy of warfarin therapy in a metropolitan private hospital: A multidisciplinary practice improvement project
Jed Duff, Kim Walker
Clinical supervision of general nurses in a busy medical ward of a teaching hospital
Wendy Cross, Alan Moore, Sherene Ockerby
Engaging clinicians in evidence based policy development: The case of nursing documentation
Diana Jefferies, Maree Johnson, Rhonda D Griffiths AM, Kathy Arthurs, David Beard, Tanghua Chen, Maureen Edgetton-Winn, Tony Hecimovic, Margaret Hughes, Karen Linten, Julie Maddox, Damien McCaul, Kim Robson, Shelley Scott, Tina Zarkos