USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center
Abstract
The Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) is a newer role in the nursing profession. This generalist Registered Nurse (RN) role was designed to help address fragmented healthcare delivery and care coordination, emphasize and facilitate evidence-based practice, and improve patient quality outcomes at the microsystem level (AACN, 2011). This paper describes a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project that took place from January through December 2017 focused on making the business case to incorporate CNLs into a hospital staffing model. The CNLs focused on reducing hospital acquired infections (HAIs). The CNLs’ work reduced HAIs by 48% in 2017 as compared to 2016 thereby saving the hospital nearly $385,000 in unreimbursed clinical care. Based on this project’s outcomes, four full-time CNL positions were approved for 2018
