Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Objectives: We will present workshop attendees with information related to: 1) the evolution of primary care registered nursing practices in Canada, and 2) current issues and methods used to measure/evaluate the professional scope of practice of registered nurses. Rationale: Research on primary care registered nursing professional practice is increasing. However, the activities of primary care registered nurses vary from other nursing classifications in terms of frequency of specific activities related to health education, self-management support, global assessment, and monitoring. Also, professional practice varies between primary care practices due to differences in funding arrangements, patient care needs, and location of practice (e.g. variations between countries). There is a need to develop a tool to measure scope of practice of registered nurses in primary care. Primary care researchers/stakeholders would benefit from the creation of a tool that takes into account the unique nature of the context and role of nurses in this setting. Participation: After a review of the challenges to measuring professional practice of registered nurses in primary care, attendees will participate in several ways : 1) Share their research interests and experiences about primary care nursing research in a small group, 2) engage in problem-solving about measurement/evaluation of professional practice of registered nurses in a primary care context, and 3) engage in reflective exercises to create a measurement tool component to assess professional practices of registered nurses in primary care. Real world cases will be discussed as a way to gauge attendees' perceptions of the best way to measure professional practice. We will encourage participants from many countries and different professional fields of research to share their experiences and data specific to their setting.