INLP

The Integrated Nurse Leadership Program was a multi-year, 16-hospital grant that established a quality improvement collaborative to develop nurses’ leadership skills, and improve the processes and outcomes for a pre-determined quality improvement project, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The program brought together teams of nurses to transform the hospital work environment and improve nurse-related patient outcomes through increasing nurses’ professionalism, while enhancing their capacity to create and lead sustainable systems change. Clinicians were led through an entire process of quality improvement, during which time INLP participants learn to innovate, test innovations, diffuse innovations throughout the hospital, and embed innovations in hospital policies and daily practice. INLP programs were run through the University of California San Francisco's Center for the Health Professions, from 2005 - 2011.

 

Through Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grants, INLP led quality improvement programs focused on reducing medication errors and improving sepsis detection and management.

 

Outcomes:

 

• Improve leadership capacity of frontline clinicians through building a variety of skills

• Improve patient outcomes at the unit level and hospital-wide level

 

Participants

 

Sixteen San Francisco Bay area hospitals were selected for inclusion into the program, between both the sepsis management, and medication administration projects. Each hospital assembled a team of 10 members, largely nurses, out of which one was considered the team lead. Teams also had an executive sponsor, a high-ranking person at their institution who served as a contact, advisor,  and advocate for the team.

 

Schedule

 

Each program was implemented over 18-22 months in 2 phases.  The first phase lasted approximately 9 months with the goals of assembling the team and implementing system improvements on one unit. The second phase lasted approximately 11 months with goals of deepening the skills of the initial team, teaching these skills to as a second (spread) team, and spreading the system improvements to at least 1 additional unit within the hospital.

 

Team members participated in 12 full days of in-person seminars over the 20 months. The time in-between the sessions, termed intersession, was independent team work often facilitated by an INLP program liaison.