Introduction
To develop a successful plan featuring the best dissemination strategies, it is necessary to identify the goal of the project, its target audience and stakeholders, and the required resources (Barksdale, Newhouse, & Miller, 2014). The activities are to be organized to expand the dissemination plan in two major directions: (a) to develop the change project commercially to obtain the necessary funding and (b) to spread the scientific results of the project about its academic value for future research on the topic (Holloway & Galvin, 2016).
Target audience
The target audience of the project consists of STEMI patients currently suffering from an unstable door-to-balloon time that must be reduced to 45 minutes. However, despite the narrow scope of the problem, the stakeholders are relatively numerous. Immediate participants include (Akbar, 2015):
- STEMI patients and their families who initiate rapid therapeutic intervention;
- Emergency Department staff, responsible for registration, triage, and consultation with the physician and cardiologist;
- Miami Dade Fire Rescue and EMS;
- STEMI Team, integrating the interventional cardiologist, two cardiovascular registered nurses, two cardiovascular technicians, and a perfusions (circulatory support) technician.
The rest of the audience, among whom the plan should be disseminated, includes (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2014):
- the academic community;
- commissioning organizations;
- community nursing staff;
- health-care providers;
- external statutory organizations.
Resources
The resources needed are (Menees et al., 2013):
- data related to primary PCI practices, performance, and nurse leadership;
- data from physician resources showing the availability of doctors, their competencies and schedules;
- data collected from patients in emergency departments and during any other treatment procedures;
- funds from external organizations.
Taking into consideration the variety of stakeholders as well as resources required from them, dissemination strategies should be targeted separately at academic and non-academic audiences. Thus, several strategies will be considered for their suitability to the goals of the project and the capability of reaching both academic and non-academic audiences (Moule, Aveyard, & Goodman, 2016):
- E-mail. Since the issue the project deals with is pressing and involves many human lives, delayed forms of communication are not preferable in this case, despite their lower level of expense. However, slower communication modes can be used within the dissemination strategy to send newsletters to policymakers.
- Telephone. This is a quick way of reaching non-academic stakeholders who are directly involved in treatment, and it can also be used for contacting funding organizations.
- Flyers and posters. Posters can be used to increase the visibility of the issue. However, distributing flyers at events requires additional funding and does not give substantial results. Therefore, this strategy is hardly applicable.
- Newsletter. To highlight the major results and improvements achieved, the project leaders will produce a newsletter once every three months, to be forwarded to both academic and non-academic stakeholders.
- Publications in peer-reviewed journals. This is a powerful dissemination tool for evoking the interest of the academic community. Publishing peer-reviewed articles ensure that the project will have a long-lasting influence and attract other researchers to the problem. Also, it will allow implementing the project in other hospitals.
- Publication of policy papers. At the initial stage of the project, this dissemination strategy cannot be applied as it is too early to talk about addressing influential policymakers. First, it is important to win the recognition of the scientific community and support of funding agencies, and only then should the project be developed into a comprehensive policy.
- Press releases and media coverage. It is possible to consider press releases in different languages when the project proves to be successful. However, media coverage would be too expensive in the first stage of dissemination.
- Workshops. Once a month, it is possible to schedule workshops to allow all stakeholders to interact and exchange their ideas about the project.
- Social media. This channel can be included in the dissemination strategy to popularize the project among the young audience.
References
Akbar, T. M. (2015). The role of effective communication in the management of medical emergencies. Anesthesia, Pain & Intensive Care, 18(4), 329-331.
Barksdale, D. J., Newhouse, R., & Miller, J. A. (2014). The patient-centered outcomes research institute (PCORI): Information for academic nursing. Nursing Outlook, 62(3), 192-200.
Holloway, I., & Galvin, K. (2016). Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2014). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Menees, D. S., Peterson, E. D., Wang, Y., Curtis, J. P., Messenger, J. C., Rumsfeld, J. S., & Gurm, H. S. (2013). Door-to-balloon time and mortality among patients undergoing primary PCI. New England Journal of Medicine, 369(10), 901-909.
Moule, P., Aveyard, H., & Goodman, M. (2016). Nursing research: An introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.