1. Describe three steps in the project undertaken by three children’s hospitals to benchmark and share best practices in the area of patient fall prevention.
2. Discuss two lessons learned from the 3 children’s hospitals involved in a collaborative effort to benchmark patient falls data.

 Purpose:

Describe collaborative efforts underway by three children’s hospitals to improve patient care outcomes through a benchmarking project around pediatric patient falls.  
  

Description of how the session will provide relevant and current knowledge:

The project strategic plan will be shared as well as the step-by-step approach taken by these hospitals. Aggregate findings will be shared as well as efforts to ensure data integrity through clear operational definitions.  
 

Summary of presentation:

I.    NSIs should be benchmarked at broadest possible level

II.  Specialty groups do not all have national benchmarking opportunities

III. Three hospitals have entered into a collaborative agreement to benchmark and share best practices around pediatric patient falls

IV.  Identification of possible collaborative partners

V.   CNO leadership and approvals

VI.  Getting started and getting to work

VII.  Coming to terms and agreeing on operational definitions, sorting variables, frequency of data collection, and who will maintain the database

VIII. Data Use Agreement for Performance Improvement and use of hospital legal counsel

IX.  Demographics can describe how similar or dissimilar the organizations are

X.   The Strategic Roadmap outlines the vision, mission, purpose, project leads, operational definitions, sorting variables, data sharing agreements, reporting frequency, and sharing of program best practices

XI. NDNQI processes, definitions, and scoring utilized

XII. Statisticians are key

XIII.  Learning from one another is realizing the benefit of the project for our patients

XIV.  Are small collaborations possible? Getting started in your own specialties and communities 

Implications for practice:

• Small collaborations do not take the place of larger national databases, but serve a purpose when specialty databases are not available.
• Diverse institutions can "come to the table" and work in partnership for the good of the entire pediatric nursing community. 
• Participation in collaborative efforts results in great satisfaction for the staff involved, develops networking relationships among nurses in the greater community, and promotes the perception of the Magnet organization as a strong, positive, and productive partner in the communities they serve.