Pathway to the STARS

A Culture of Excellence: Evidence-based Public Health Nursing Practice, also known as STARS, is a HRSA/Division of Nursing grant-funded project awarded to the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. The project itself employs an evidence-based model to change the culture of health departments relating to the use of evidence based practice. STARS is an acronym for search, translate, adopt, refine, share, exemplifying the project's intent to promote public health nurses' (PHNs) adoption of evidence-based practice. The project's components include: 1) the development of a web accessible and searchable repository of current best evidence in support of practice; 2) training and support of evidence “champions” recruited from Minnesota's local health departments; 3) topical blogs on the website where PHNs can dialogue about practice improvement and tips; 4) online wikis where experts will develop and test evidence based practice guidelines on selected topics. The grant culminates in 2011 with webcasts featuring lessons learned and recommendations for increasing the speed of translating research findings into practice realities. Although the training and support of local health department evidence “champions” is limited to Minnesota public health professionals, STARS' web-based components are expected to be utilized by any public health professional with access to the Internet; national and international participants are welcomed. This presentation focuses on the process used to build the repository, how to access and use the repository, and soliciting “practice-based evidence”- evidence from reports, program evaluations, and other forums supporting public health nursing practice.