 Member Highlight Lynette Westbrook, MSN, RN, CCRC IACRN Leadership is grateful to our membership for their unwavering commitment towards having clinical research nursing recognized as a specialty practice. We wish to thank you by highlighting a member in each newsletter. This month we would like to recognize Lynette Westbrook MSN, RN, CCRC. Ms. Lynette Westbrook has spent over 20 years in clinical research nursing; her first study was looking at utilizing rt_PA in patients with acute heart attacks. She has helped coordinate over 30 studies over this time period, mostly in the field of cardiology. She became a certified as a clinical research coordinator (CCRC) in 1994. For the past 7 years Ms. Westbrook has spent much of her time working as a research nurse specialist on cardiovascular stem cell clinical trials . Lynette has always had a passion for teaching, and this past year was instrumental in helping her site be chosen as a training core site for nurses learning about stem cell research in clinical research studies.
Lynette also helped develop a clinical research nurse/ coordinator training program at University of Texas (UT) Health 10 years ago. This pilot program continued to grow, and 6 years ago when the program was expanded to include a full planning board of 8 very experienced research nurses. This group established a formal 2 day training forum which is offered to new clinical coordinators 2 to 3 times per year. Lynette has lectured at numerous national meetings, and is a guest lecturer each year at the UT School of Nursing PhD program .
Lynette was introduced to IACRN by Madelene Ottosen (IACRN Board Member-At-Large) in 2008. Madelene is also at UT Health, and was an active member of the local chapter of Association of Clinical Research Nurses (ACRN). Hearing of the development of IACRN and its first national meeting she became excited at the opportunity to network with other research nurses from around the US and world. Lynette will be presenting at the 4th annual IACRN meeting this month in Houston.
Lynette is a current member of the IACRN Chapter Development Committee. She also remains very active with her local ACRN chapter, and has served as president for the past 2 years. In her free time Lynette enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, bicycling and gardening.
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Practice Corner
Kathlyn Schumacher RN
The Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), in Philadelphia, PA is an
8-bed inpatient unit that includes an outpatient area, a complex procedure room, a core laboratory, two nursing laboratories, and a research bio-nutrition kitchen.
In this unit we recently examined practice around the collection of arterialized blood for research protocols using retrograde IVs. A unit policy is in development.
Because heating pads are so vital to the maintenance of the retrograde IV, we also created a policy entitled "Use of Heating Pads for Frequent Blood Draws in the Clinical & Translational Research Center" in 2009. This policy not only protects both research participants and the nurses, but also guides safe nursing practice. Subsequently, we wrote an article describing this policy's development process which explains our need for the heating pads and the use retrograde IVs. Look for this article in an upcoming issue ofAmerican Nurse Today.
To read the full version of this practice article
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CALL FOR AUTHORS
Do you have information that you would like to share with your research nurse colleagues?
We encourage our members to grow professionally, while supporting our mission to enhance clinical research quality and safety through specialized nursing practice.
IACRN welcomes authors to submit on topics that are relevant to clinical research nursing globally. Please forward submissions to Liza Behrens, IACRN President-Elect at LLBehrens@geisinger.edu
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Greetings!
I am very excited about our upcoming Annual Conference in Houston October 17-20th. The final agenda is packed full of expert speakers sharing practical information that you can take back and apply to your practice. See the full agenda at http://iacrn.memberlodge.org/confagenda.
In addition to the speakers, this is a wonderful time to network and learn from other Clinical Research Nurses. In this newsletter we are sharing with you a member highlight for Lynette Westbrook who is from Houston. She has done amazing work to assist clinical research nurses in her local area. Be sure to check this out and talk with her at our meeting. There is still time to register so if you have not done so take another look at the agenda and join us for all or part of the meeting. I am looking forward to seeing many of
you in Houston and sharing best practices for clinical research nursing.
Sincerely,
Shaunagh Browning RN, FNP-BC
Your President
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4th Annual IACRN Conference
Brian Beardslee MSN, RN
The 2012 Conference Planning Committee is completing the final plans for this year's IACRN 4th Annual Conference "Helping Tomorrow's Patients Today" being held this week, October 17th through October 20th at the Omni Houston Hotel in Houston, Texas. We have put together plenary, concurrent and breakout sessions that will offer attendee's strategies to address challenges in research nursing practice, apply genetics and genomics into practice, and recognize some current roles within clinical research nursing.
For the first time this year, we are offering two pre-conference workshops beginning on Wednesday, October 17th.. One session on "Financial Management of Clinical Trials" and with the other on "From Abstract to Publication".
Discussed further on in this newsletter, our keynote speaker is Dr. Kathleen Stevens, Principal Investigator from the Improvement Science Research Network at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her key note address will focus on "Improvement Science-Impacting the Future Through Clinical Research". As a result of feedback from previous years conference attendees we are pleased that our members worldwide are providing many of this year's concurrent and breakout presentations. Topics include sharing of best practices from the United Kingdom, providing research nursing at the point of care and scopes and standards of practice. This year's Distinguished Research Lecture titled, "Clinical Research Nursing IntoThe Future" will be given by Dr. Margaret McCabe, PhD, RN. We encourage you to share this exciting conference agenda with your colleagues as there is still time to register and attend. Come be a part of this year's 4th Annual IACRN Conference, October 17-20, 2012.
Please click here to go to the IACRN website where you can print out this year's register for the conference, print an agenda and abstract book.
We look forward to seeing y'all in Houston for a rewarding 4th Annual IACRN Conference!
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Improvement Science: A Keynote Topic
Madelene Ottosen, MSN, RN, CCRC
Improvement Science is an emerging field of science focused on building evidence for healthcare quality improvement. The primary goal of Improvement Science is to use rigorous scientific design in determining effective strategies to increase care quality and patient safety.
As integrated members of the healthcare team, clinical research nurses need to examine efforts to improve the safety and quality of care we provide to research participants. We often look at the quality of our practice through the lens of effective completion of study procedures. However are we examining safer, more efficient and more patient-centered approaches to our care? Do we know the harms to our research participants? Are we using and/or considering the evidence in patient care from other specialty practices when implementing clinical trials especially across multiple healthcare sites? Is there a culture of safety within our research teams? How do we handle hand-offs and other patient care activities which impact safety? The time seems right to focus on examining and documenting the quality and safety of care we provide, as such this years keynote speaker for the 4th Annual IACRN Conference is Dr. Kathleen Stevens RN, EdD, ANEF, FAAN, Principal Investigator for the Improvement Science Research Network.
Dr. Stevens
speak to quality processes and knowledge transformation practices that can be used to examine the care we provide to research participants.
Click Here to Read More About Improvement Science |
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Membership Campaign Winner Gets Free Conference Registration
Susan Peterson, MBA, RN, CCRP
Congratulations to Kathy Grinke from Massachusetts, she is the winner of our 2012 Grab a Member and Go campaign. Kathy wins a free conference tuition to this year's 4th Annual Conference, "Helping Tomorrow's Patients Today".
Thanks to everyone that participated in our Grab a Member and Go campaign. We think it was wildly successful as we had a total of 71 new members join over the course of the campaign. Our new members represent 20 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada!
I'd like to welcome our new members that have joined us this year, as well as those that have recently re-joined. We hope that you find belonging to our professional organization as beneficial as we have. We also hope that you will become involved with the Association as we need your input to become an even stronger professional entity for you, our members. To share your membership campaign ideas please contact Susan Peterson at petersos@ohsu.edu
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IACRN Mid-Year Board Meeting Summary
Liza Behrens MSN, RN, CCRC
The IACRN Board of Directors ("Board") met at Georgetown Clinical Research Unit in Washington, D.C on August 9-11, 2012. Board member quorum was achieved each day with the utilization of web conferencing. Agenda items focused on organizational strategic planning, organizational committee leadership and structure, organizational policies, upcoming vacancies in Board positions, and organizational management. The first order of business was Board member positions. We currently have nine board positions: Past-President, President, President-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, Treasurer-elect, two Members at Large, and an Emeritus Member. The Board concluded that there will continue to be five elected positions for the Board: President-Elect, Treasurer-Elect, Secretary, and two Member at Large positions that will be split into two election cycles. For 2013 we will be accepting nominations for the following Board positions: Secretary, one Member at Large, and Treasurer-Elect. The Board reviewed organizational committee structures and leadership along with inquiries for special interest group support. It was determine that in order to create efficiency and streamline oversight, organizational committees will be restructured to the following: Education Committee ( which will now include conference planning committee), Scopes, Standards and Policies, Chapter Governance, Nominations, Membership, Marketing & Communications, and Research. At this point we don't have resources to provide ongoing networking support for special interest groups other than offering opportunities for networking at annual conferences. Organizational policies where reviewed in sections: Membership, Board of Directors, Election and Voting by Members, Association Committees; with real time edits. There are still policies for Chapters, General Provisions and Conflict of Interest that need to be reviewed by the Board. The final draft of the policies document will be shared with membership when available. A Treasurers report was provided including a balance sheet, profit & loss statement and conference budget. This will be shared at the annual business meeting in Houston, Tx. The Board participated in two Organizational Management Company presentations. A follow up with each company is planned to solicit a request for proposal of priority IACRN management needs as determined by the Board. Finally, the Board spent a considerable time discussing strategic plans for 2013 and beyond. This is essential for organizational growth. The Board will next meet at the October 17-20, 2012 IACRN 4th Annual Conference in Houston, Texas.  Left to Right: Susan Peterson - Treasurer, Shaunagh Browning - President, Liza Behrens- President-Elect.
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