ACEN update: Canadian nursing leadership study.

As a current member of ACEN, I am pleased to have an opportunity in this column to profile briefly an upcoming CHSRF-funded study of Canadian nursing leadership. The study is officially entitled “A Profile of the Structure and Impact of Nursing Management in Canadian Hospitals,” and was approved for funding by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (Project Identifier: RC10964-06) in September 2003. I am co-principal investigator with Dr. Heather Laschinger, Professor, University of Western Ontario. The overall goal of this three-year study is to profile current nursing leadership and management structures in Canadian hospitals by examining the organizational and structural characteristics of nursing management roles (at senior, middle and unit levels) in teaching and community hospitals. This study will also examine how nursing leadership roles in hospital settings across Canada have changed and the factors that are important in enabling nurse leaders to perform their roles. A number of coinvestigators from various disciplines, in addition to nursing and decision-maker partners and consultants (see below), form a strong team to conduct this research.