title: Nurses as practice change facilitators for healthy behaviors.
abstract: This study used nurses as practice change consultants to help primary care medical practices improve their delivery of health behavior services to patients. Nurse consultants worked with 20 practices from 2 healthcare systems. In each practice, the nurses helped clinicians and staff to develop a practice-specific protocol so that they could identify and intervene with the health behavior of their patients. As a result of the nurse consultant intervention, health behavior delivery was improved. This article describes the specific methods and the lessons learned through this study. We encourage practices to use nurse consultants as one way of improving quality of care.
authors.affiliation: College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. jodi.holtrop@hc.msu.edu
authors.forename: Jodi Summers
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Holtrop
authors.forename: Jeanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baumann
authors.forename: Anita K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Trissa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Torres
mesh_terms: D002985:Clinical Protocols; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000523:psychology; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration; D009731:Nursing Audit; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011322:Primary Prevention; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology; D012944:Social Support; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration