Hi!  My name is Melissa Rogers and I’ve been an RN since 2011.  I’m currently working as an Employee Health RN at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, KS.  I’ve worked previously in the ED as well as adult and pediatric dialysis units.

In my work as an employee health nurse, our processes are driven by CMS and OSHA requirements as well as guidelines provided by entities such as the CDC (vaccines).  While I’m sure there is nurse involvement in the research that is used to write those guidelines, the primary place that I see nursing research at play is in our Nurse Forum.  Nurse Forum is our shared governance council at Wesley and as the co-chair of the forum, I get to see nursing research turned into nursing practice changes in our hospital.  For example, our ED nurses were not allowed to place IO accesses for critical patients, despite it being within our scope of practice in the state of Kansas.  The unit based council in the ED rallied to propose a change to hospital policy that would allow trained RNs to provide IO access in emergent situations.  They did this by gathering research on best practices, creating a training program, and providing evidence to nursing leadership that ultimately lead to policy and practice changes in our organization.  Being part of the system that supports nurses to have a voice in their practice is incredibly rewarding.