Making something of it : one ward's application of evidence into practice

Implementing evidence into practice can be a challenging and time consuming process for clinical teams. We conducted a qualitative study of the experiences of care for children, parents and nurses on an inpatient ward at a tertiary paediatric referral hospital in Sydney, Australia. We considered the conduct of the research to be only one step in a process of change commenced before the initiation of the research project and continuing well after its conclusion. The subsequent step was to share what we had learned with ward staff to enable them to act to improve the experience of care for everybody. This article reports the place of the project in the overall program of change on the ward, the strategies undertaken to share the finding of the research and the ongoing steps being undertaken to translate the research findings into improvements in care. Although the process is incomplete, it continues to gather momentum as the staff celebrate their achievements to date and look for new ways to proceed into the future.