The Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research - Patient Care Services

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A Message from Dorothy A. Jones, EdD, RNC, FAAN
Director, The Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research
& Professor, Adult Health Nursing, William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College

The Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research offers nurses an opportunity to participate in the development, testing, utilization and evaluation of nursing research. By fostering and supporting an organizational climate that promotes scholarly inquiry, patient- and family-centered care is enhanced and the professional practice environment is optimized.

As the Director in the Center, I have the opportunity to advance a research agenda across the MGH community and promote opportunities for nurse researchers to develop their own program of research. Through the establishment of the Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research, new partnerships and interdisciplinary collaborations can be formed to enhance evidence-based practice. These initiatives will also advance nursing’s research agenda to articulate nursing’s impact on high quality, efficient, effective, timely, safe, and cost-effective health care.

In addition to my role in the Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research, I am a Professor of Nursing at the William F. Connell School of Nursing at Boston College. Between these two roles, I have developed several areas of research concentration including nursing theory development and evaluation, language development and classification, instrument development, and intervention research, especially around coaching and recovery at home after surgery.

I have served as the PI on several grants, including the recently completed NIH-NINR study designed to investigate the Efficacy of Nursing Coaching to Aid Ambulatory Surgery Patients. This project promoted the involvement of students, faculty, and staff nurses at MGH to work collaboratively to advance a research agenda within the perioperative practice setting. I have worked with students and staff to advance nursing knowledge and improve clinical practice, particularly with Margaret Newman’s theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness (Picard & Jones [2005]. Giving Voice to What We Know: Health as Expanding Consciousness in Nursing Education, Research, and Practice and (Roy & Jones [2007]) Nursing Knowledge Development for Clinical Practice. More recent publications have focused on instrument development and the focus of the discipline.

These experiences and others continue to support my belief that nursing research is well positioned to change health care, globally. At MGH, nurse researchers are working to create an environment of inquiry where nursing science can grow and flourish. These nurses are committing their time and talent to help solve problems and promote opportunities to be on the cutting edge of advances in health care. The Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research offers all nurses an opportunity to become partners in the creation of a community of nurse scholars that can bring new knowledge to the delivery of interdisciplinary patient care.


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