Creative scholarship: the importance of global networks.

Abstract

© 2 01 5 M A H ea lth ca re L td Education matters to nurses who face an increasing number of challenges to achieve their goal of improving the health of the world’s people. Indeed, a study by Grol and Grimshaw (2003) undertaken in both the USA and the Netherlands reported that 30–40% of all patients do not receive care based on current best evidence, and as many as 20–25% of all patients receive harmful or unnecessary care. In spite of the publication of an increasing number of ‘evidence-based’ nursing journals, Wallin (2009) confirms that there is a distinct lack of implementation of evidence into practice and cites a number of barriers, including leadership and continuous professional development (CPD), as factors. The time and opportunity to take part in face-to-face workshop activities to discuss the nuances of implementing evidence-based practice is becoming a rarity. With considerable workforce shortages, the feasibility of releasing staff for education and development has become extremely challenging. Nurses, like other health professionals, have to self-fund and study in their own time. However, nursing has come of age and we are all expected to read and engage regularly in the literature to ensure that, individually, we keep abreast of developments. Nevertheless, from 2016 in the UK, every 3 years, nurses will be required to revalidate (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2015) in order to reregister and prove their completion of 40 hours of CPD, half of which must be participatory. This presents the opportunity for us to think more creatively about how we can get the best from our own scholarship. So, might there be other ways to engage in educational updating, other than solitary online learning or being released to engage in face-to-face activities? I propose that nurses capitalise on networking with each other to engage in learning with and from each other. Indeed, Coates and Fraser (2014) advocate collaborative networks for both clinical nurse educators and with academics, citing a number of examples in both the USA and Canada of the considerable benefits of such collaboration for knowledge exchange and research utilisation Elizabeth Rosser