Newswise — The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) recently awarded an AACN Impact Research Grant to Ruth Kleinpell, RN-CS, PhD, FAAN, a noted nurse researcher who leads the Center for Clinical Research, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago.

Kleinpell and her research team will conduct a national survey to identify models of care for acute care nurse practitioners (ACNPs). The project is an essential next step in advance of a large, prospective study to determine the effectiveness of ACNPs in the acute care setting.

An experienced ACNP herself, Kleinpell is considered one of the leading experts on ACNP practice. She will lead a multisite study to assess outcomes of ACNP care, data which are lacking but urgently needed to structure ACNP-led models of care to meet current workforce needs. Results from this study will provide an essential foundation for future effectiveness studies examining the impact of ACNPs on healthcare outcomes.

This is Kleinpell’s second AACN Impact Research Grant. She recently completed a benchmark study assessing the impact of telemedicine on critical care nursing practice, which AACN funded in 2010 with its inaugural Impact Research Grant.

Kleinpell received AACN’s 2010 Flame of Excellence Award for sustained regional and national contributions to acute and critical care nursing. Among her many accomplishments, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), Washington, D.C.; the American College of Critical Care Medicine, Mount Prospect, Ill.; and Academy of Nurse Practitioners, Austin, Texas. She currently serves on the AAN board of directors.

Kleinpell edited “Outcome Assessment in Advanced Practice Nursing,” third edition, which earned a 2013 Advanced Practice Nursing Book of the Year award from the American Journal of Nursing.

AACN Impact Research Grants support clinical inquiry that drives change in high acuity and critical care nursing practice. Priority projects address gaps in clinical research at the organization or system level and translation of these findings to bedside clinicians. Projects include use of technology to assess patients and manage outcomes; ways to create a healing and humane environment; and processes and systems to optimize high acuity and critical care nursing.

Three Impact Research Grants are available annually to established researchers and beginning researchers with mentors. Applicants may request up to $50,000 in total costs for a maximum of three years. This year, AACN awarded three grants.

Norma Metheny, RN, PhD, FAAN, Saint Louis University School of Nursing, St. Louis, also received an Impact Research Grant. She will use the grant to study feeding-tube placement in infants to develop a bedside protocol to quickly determine correct placement and significantly reduce the need for x-rays or other methods that expose patients to radiation.

The third Impact Research Grant was awarded to Carol Pavlish, RN, PhD, FAAN, from the University of California (UCLA), Los Angeles, to lead a team of nurse researchers from UCLA and two other medical centers to evaluate a proactive ethics educational program designed to decrease ethical conflict and moral distress in intensive care units.

In addition to the three Impact Research Grants, AACN continues to award annually the AACN-Sigma Theta Tau Critical Care Grant for up to $10,000 and as many as three AACN-Philips Healthcare Clinical Outcomes Grants, up to $10,000 each.

Leanne Boehm, RN, MSN, ACNS-BC, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, received the AACN-Sigma Theta Tau Critical Care Grant to study factors that may influence interdisciplinary protocol use of the ABCDE bundle and its effectiveness.

AACN-Philips Healthcare Clinical Outcomes Grant recipients are as follows:• Susan Fetzer, RN, PhD, CNL, Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, Nashua, to study noise reduction protocols in critical care environments.• Susan Finn, RN, MN, CNL, CCRN, CNRN, Billings (Mont.) Clinic, to evaluate the efficacy of new technology to guide internal triage of newly admitted patients.• Karen Mellott, RN, PhD, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, to determine the instruction method that most effectively teaches nurses how to recognize patient ventilator asynchrony.

Principal investigators for all grants must be current AACN members. Grant applications must be submitted online by Nov. 1, 2014. For more information, including award criteria and supporting documents, visit www.aacn.org/grants.

About the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: Founded in 1969 and based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is the largest specialty nursing organization in the world. AACN joins together the interests of more than 500,000 acute and critical care nurses and claims more than 235 chapters worldwide. The organization’s vision is to create a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and critical care nurses make their optimal contribution. www.aacn.org; facebook.com/aacnface; twitter.com/aacnme