Advancing Disaster Nursing: Disseminating a Critical Initiative

Abstract

<p>Poster presentation</p> <p>Session I presented Saturday, September 16, 2017</p> <p>Purpose: The Society for the Advancement of Disaster Nursing&rdquo; (SADN) was formed in 2016 to advance solutions to the complex issues surrounding disaster nursing preparedness in the United States; building upon a 2014 Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center (VEMEC) initiative&nbsp; to advance Disaster Nursing in collaboration with national nursing leaders and disaster management experts.&nbsp; Effective communication was identified as a primary goal; a dissemination workgroup (DW) was formed to develop the best options and resources for communicating key processes and outcomes.</p> <p>Design: This is a national quality improvement project.</p> <p>Setting: The work of the SADN DW communication initiative leverages virtual capabilities to execute its mission and create the messaging intended to reach a national audience.</p> <p>Participants/Subjects: All DW participants are PhD/DNP-prepared nurses representing years of experience in nursing practice, policy, academia and federal service.</p> <p>Methods: SADN&rsquo;s success in advancing the practice of disaster nursing&nbsp; depends, in part, on effective messaging and communication. The efforts of the dissemination workgroup encompass SADN&rsquo;s advisory and executive committees and additional workgroups (practice, education, policy and research) and beyond to collaborating partners.&nbsp; To facilitate an effective&nbsp; approach to dissemination, and to clearly articulate the goals and objectives of the SADN processes, the DW developed a detailed communication plan.&nbsp; The plan includes specific communication tools (e.g. template for recording meeting minutes) as well as social media tools (DisasterNursing.org webpage, Twitter @disasternur and Facebook @DisasterNursing).&nbsp; The DisasterNursing.Org webpage is intended to be a collaborative site where participants (nurses and others) will post information pertinent to disaster nursing. Another goal is to promote comments on blog topics and catalog shared personal experiences to further enrich the use and value of the social media site as a collaboration venue.&nbsp; Expansion of social media tools is anticipated with the growth of SADN.&nbsp; Evaluation of dissemination efforts includes use of social media analytics and development of a disaster nursing resources repository.</p> <p>Results/ Outcomes: The results of this initiative are on-going, yet significant progress to date has been made in establishing the plan, developing the social media platforms, and organizing the messaging key points for the advancement of disaster nursing.&nbsp; &nbsp; The communication plan explicitly describes processes for dissemination and promotion of the activities and outcomes/outputs of the executive committee and workgroups (both internally and externally) to standardize communications within the organization. This two year plan identifies stakeholders including current stakeholders (committee and workgroup members, and current collaborating partners) and potential future stakeholders (non-profit, academic, and professional organizations as well as government agencies).&nbsp; In-house communication tools are in the adoption phase and uptake to date has been limited. Social media data analytics indicate an increasing interest in social media outputs. The value of SADN messaging is gaining presence at conferences, on-line, and through professional publications.</p> <p>Implications: The advancement of the practice of disaster nursing, including activation of a new organization with national impact is an enormous and critical undertaking.&nbsp; The dissemination workgroup&rsquo;s efforts to promote this endeavor may serve as a model for advancement of large initiatives in the field of disaster nursing.</p>