PRE-REGISTRATION FOR THE FREE CE JOURNAL CLUB
What a wonderful opportunity to KICKOFF the Journal Club.
Register in advance for this meeting:
History of the Journal Club:
Journal Clubs have long been used with great success in medical education. They were instituted in the early 1800s in England where a group of students met regularly in a room over a baker's shop to read journals or play cards. In Montreal in 1875, Osler, considered one of the fathers of modern medicine who established the medical residency program, developed a Journal Club for medical residents to share articles, because the journals were too expensive for individual purchase. They met at dinner to review and discuss the latest medical research. By 1900, Journal Clubs were a routine part of medical education.
What is a Journal Club?
"A journal club has been defined as an educational meeting in which a group of individuals discuss current articles, providing a forum for a collective effort to keep up with the literature" (Kleinpell, 2002 p. 412). The purpose of a Journal Club is to review current nursing literature, discuss the information and evidence provided, and determine potential practice changes with the ultimate goal of improved patient outcomes. In fact, the Journal Club is an early example of the flipped classroom concept. Students read the articles and then come together with a facilitator or mentor to discuss the content and its application. In addition, if you listen to nurses talk around the lunch or dinner table, you are more than likely to hear them discussing patient care issues in an informal way. The Journal Club lends formality and structure to these important patient care conversations, supported by literature and guided discussion. Journal Clubs provide an open forum for discussing nursing issues in a friendly environment. They also offer new nurses an opportunity to talk with more seasoned nurses about patient care issues. Journal Clubs bring evidence to the nurses rather than expecting the nurses to seek out new evidence.
There are several types of Journal Clubs. They vary by location and method: in-person meetings on or off site, virtual meetings or blogs, videotaped conferences or telephone conferences, and trave
ling Journal Clubs. Some include repeated sessions in any of these formats to ensure more staff are able to attend. Game format, debate format, or Journal Club fair/poster presentations may be incorporated. A Journal Club might also be combined with patient rounds. Journal Clubs also vary by objectives: evaluation of research, change in nursing practice, learning medical statistics, improving clinical decision making, piquing interest in conducting staff-driven research, learning research design, discovering new evidence in a specific specialty, developing critical appraisal skills, team building, and professional development.
BENEFITS OF THE JOURNAL CLUB FORMAT
* Keep nurses up-to-date with current research and clinical knowledge
* Promote professional reading
* Skill development in reading and critically appraising research
* Shorten the knowledge-to-practice gap
* Incorporate evidence into professional practices and patient care
* Promote interaction and dialogue among nurses, creating a community of practice
* Provide a structured social venue to learn from each other, stay current, and debate the evidence
* Promote team building and interdisciplinary collaboration (interdisciplinary Journal Clubs)
* Improve patient care organization-wide though policy and procedure changes
* Improve presentation, writing, and communication skills
* Support Magnet designation-"Nurses incorporate evidence-based findings and standards into the delivery of patient care" (American Nurses Credentialing Center, 2013, p. 43)
This strategy incorporates adult learning principles, active participation/learning, and learning from peers; uses flipped classroom concept; provides opportunity for formalized "lunch time" discussions, learning to read and review nursing literature; allows nurses to participate in potential or recent practice changes; and encourages development of "free-standing" Journal Clubs. The NPD practitioner can play a key role in implementing this strategy and helping nurses learn to read, analyze, and apply nursing research.
Evidence-based practice leads to improved patient outcomes, continuity of care, increased engagement among professionals, and is a key component to achieving Magnet designation. EBP also leads to decreased medical errors and mortality rates, and decreased healthcare costs for both the patient and the institution. (Patel et al., 2011, pp. 227-228)
