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Henry Ford Hospital Nursing Research Toolkit

This toolkit is a guide for investigators who are interested in planning, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating nursing research projects. Each of the grey tabs represents a page that can be printed.

Determine the Practice Issue and Research Question

What is it you want to address? Practice issues typically center around broad objectives that have been identified nationally as the Quadruple Aim priorities in healthcare (Berwick, Nolan & Whittington 2008; Bodenheimer & Sinsky, 2014). These aims encompass priority healthcare issues and include the following topic areas:

  • Improving patients' outcomes
  • Improving patients' experiences
  • Decreasing healthcare costs
  • Improving the work life of healthcare workers

In 2019, the focus of HFH Nursing is family-centered research. Family is part of each patient's environment and critical to the health and well-being of patients before and after discharge. Family can be defined as those whom the patient identifies as their family whether or not these persons are biologic relatives or  living in the same household. We hope that researchers will incorporate family into their patient-centered research projects. They are critical to the health of all patients. 

Clarify Research Question

Begin with stating your research question clearly. The research question identifies study variables and asks how the variables might be related. 

  • One strategy is to put your question in PICOT format to provide direction for your literature search. 
  • PICOT is an mnemonic tool to help you include all the important elements of your research question. Visit the Nursing EBP guide for more information on creating a PICOT question: https://henryford.libguides.com/nursingebp/picot

  • Sladen librarians can assist with focusing your search question and provide project support as well.
  • Explore resources on the Sladen Library website: https://henryford.libguides.com/sladen
  • Call or visit the Sladen Library at main campus on K-17 during open hours. Phone: 313-916-2550