Alumna Makes an Impact with Research
Mercy College alumna Jessica Brown, RN (BSN, 2011) and her research partner, Jamie Gust, BSN, RN, CPEN, recently presented at poster days at the University of Michigan.
Jessica and Jamie have been working on their project since the fall of 2016. At that time, chart audits completed by Jessica and Jamie showed that only about 41.8% of staff were complying with asking required self-harm screening questions to patient's ages 12 and up, specifically using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale.
After the initial audit results, Jessica and Jamie developed many steps to increase compliance including education to ensure staff understand the importance of the screening and a staff survey to determine why the screening questions were being skipped, to name two. Jessica explained, "Through these efforts, it was learned that many staff members simply did not feel comfortable asking the required questions." From this information, Jessica and Jamie were able to make a video featuring current staff members as actors portraying a variety of scenarios in which the screening questions were asked and answered. "After these and other education efforts, the compliance rate for asking the required self-harm screening questions for patients ages 12 and up increased to 87.5%,” Jessica reported.
Jessica is currently a staff and charge RN at the University of Michigan Mott Emergency Room where she has been employed for over 5 years.