To achieve its mission to "Shape the future of nursing and healthcare by building capacity for a culture of inquiry that advances interprofessional, practice-based research," the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Research Council developed new strategic research priorities and goals for 2022.1 This voluntary advisory body includes members with diverse professional backgrounds and expertise in nursing research and healthcare, which provides invaluable support toward advancing the mission and goals of ANCC and its organizational and individual credentialing programs. The ANCC Research Council 2022 Strategic Priorities that are described below include: 1) disseminating a research agenda for practice-based research; 2) expanding capacity to conduct multisite, interprofessional research; and 3) promoting diversity and inclusion in practice-based research.
A Nursing-Led Research Agenda
The ANCC Research Council values the distinctive position of the nursing profession to contribute meaningfully to achieving health equity. Leveraging nurses' roles in practice-based research and securing funding for research-led projects are critical to support research agendas for practice-based research that align with The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity report recommendations.2
With tight budgets and competing priorities, nurses may struggle to secure the resources needed to support research studies and evidence-based practice projects focused on outcomes. Researchers must compete with organizational priorities and find innovative ways to fund projects. To help nurses overcome these barriers, the ANCC Research Council will disseminate a nursing-led research agenda that promotes 3 key actions: 1) partnering with stakeholders, such as the American Nurses Foundation, to fund practice-based research that explores the impact of credentialing on quality, safety, nurse, and/or patient outcomes; 2) developing the infrastructure to support the implementation of practice-based research that evaluates the contribution of nurses to quality, safety, and/or patient outcomes; and 3) partnering with stakeholders to promote practice-based research that evaluates the impact of new and innovative care delivery models, assesses the health and well-being of nurses, and advances access and equity in healthcare.
Interprofessional Research
Evidence shows that clinical outcomes and health disparities can be improved through interprofessional collaboration among multidisciplinary clinicians, researchers, and patients. Nurse researchers can facilitate access to clinical trials for patients who are rarely included in healthcare services research and can coordinate interprofessional research team collaboration. Research studies across multiple sites-hospital units, systems, or multiple organizations-are important to support generalizability of the results.
The ANCC Research Council considers it important to expand capacity to conduct multisite, interprofessional research across diverse practice settings by: 1) promoting and disseminating resources to conduct practice-based research on interprofessional teams; 2) broadly disseminating funding sources for conducting multisite, interprofessional research studies; and 3) promoting and disseminating strategies to standardize data (unique ID, certification) collected in practice-based research.
Role Modeling
The ANCC Research Council concurs with The Future of Nursing 2020-20302(p359) that "promoting health and well-being for all should be a national priority, and a collective and sustained commitment is needed to achieve this priority." Thus, it is critical to be a role model and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the planning and execution of practice-based research by recruiting research council members who more broadly represent diversity in the health professions and partnering with universities to offer practicum experiences for graduate students with focus on recruiting applicants from diverse backgrounds. It is also imperative to partner with funders to establish grant opportunities to research teams who are representative of the target constituency and demonstrate strategies to engage nurses at all levels in research. Finally, it is essential to partner with nursing associations that represent minority populations to engage nurses from different backgrounds in research opportunities.
Final Thoughts
Nurses are uniquely positioned to lead and participate in research that is meaningful to their complex practice environments. Nurse researchers have made significant contributions to nursing science, driving effective interventions in their clinical settings. By focusing on the dissemination of a nurse-led research agenda for practice-based interprofessional research that encourages more equitable and inclusive approaches to research, the ANCC Research Council 2022 Research Priorities provide a path forward for the nursing profession to raise its voice to secure nurse-led research resources, reduce health disparities, and improve the well-being of the population. If you have additional questions for the ANCC Research Council regarding its 2022 Research Priorities, please contact us at mailto:[email protected].
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