Table 3

Suggestions to enhance sustainability by overcoming barriers to nurses providing values-sensitive decision support

Most frequently identified barriers
Suggestions to enhance sustainability

Innovation: Decision Support
Patient decision aids are hard to use with patients over telephone
- Decision aids need more point form and auto-charting

No structured process for preparing callers for shared decision making
- Resolved with use of Decision support protocol.

Decision support protocol is not integrated with charting
- Integrate protocol in computer database with auto-charting ability
Potential Adopters: Nurses
Inadequate decision support knowledge
- Resolved by providing nurses with access to an autotutorial

Inadequate skills in providing decision support
- Partially resolved with nurses participation in skill building workshop
- Mentoring from supervisors to further develop nurses' skills
- Revise call audit tool to include key decision support elements
- Continuing education to reinforce learning
- Encourage nurses to self-assess their performance

Low confidence in ability to provide decision support
- Nurse supervisors could give positive feedback on quality of decision support provided
Practice Environment: Call Centre
Unclear program direction to provide decision support
- Determine impact of decision support calls on program services
- Establish clear direction

Limited orientation of new staff to decision support resources
- Use feedback to revise implementation intervention
- Extend training to all nurses and in-particular nurse supervisors
- Revise call audit tool to include elements of quality decision support

Pressures to minimize call length
- Revise call classification to collect decision support calls statistics
- Establish call length guidelines tailored to types of calls
- Revise patient decision aids for easier use by telephone
- Integrate decision support protocol into the database

Low caller awareness that call centre nurses provide decision support
- Market decision support services to public & other health services

Stacey et al. Implementation Science 2006 1:17   doi:10.1186/1748-5908-1-17