Strategies to Help Decrease Non-Compliance with a Policy or Clinical Practice Guidelines

Strategies to Help Decrease Non-Compliance with a Policy or Clinical Practice Guidelines

To demonstrate their commitment to evidence-based practice, healthcare organizations should put in place strategies to help decrease non-compliance with clinical practice guidelines or a healthcare policy. The reality of evidence translation as perceived by nurses is that it is always characterized by numerous challenges that must first be addressed for a successful transition to occur (Krudsen et al., 2021). One of the strategies to ensure compliance with evidence-based practice is to train nurses to implement a particular policy. During such training, the organization should communicate the rationale for a given practice change and its impacts on patient outcomes. Training basically increases the nurses’ skills, knowledge, and attitudes regarding a particular healthcare policy (Qumseya et al., 2021; Sasaki et al., 2020). Nurses will feel motivated to implement the policies outlined in clinical practice guidelines when they are empowered to perform the associated tasks thereby leading to compliance.

Another strategy that may help to increase compliance to clinical practice guidelines is leadership support. An organization’s leadership provide both human and non-human resources that are needed to support the delivery of quality healthcare services (Qumseya et al., 2021). McArthur et al. (2021) identified leadership support and availability of resources to be among the key facilitators of evidence-based nursing practice compliance. As Qumseya et al., (2021) explain, ensuring that nurses have access to clinical practice guidelines improves guidelines adherence and compliance. Therefore, the leadership should provide nurses with clearly documented clinical practice guidelines at the point of care to improve compliance. An organization that is able to address the barriers to evidence-based nursing practice compliance will be able to increase adherence to a healthcare policy or clinical practice guidelines.