An organizational perspective on the long-term sustainability of a nursing best practice guidelines program: a case study

摘要

BackgroundMany healthcare innovations are not sustained over the long term, wasting costly implementation efforts and often desperately-needed initial improvements. Although there have been advances in knowledge about innovation implementation, there has been considerably less attention focused on understanding what happens following the early stages of change. Research is needed to determine how to improve the ‘staying power’ of healthcare innovations. As almost no empirical knowledge exists about innovation sustainability in nursing, the purpose of our study was to understand how a nursing best practice guidelines (BPG) program was sustained over a long-term period in an acute healthcare centre.