MULTISITE CLINICAL RESEARCH - A CHALLENGE FOR NURSING LEADERS

The need for the application of research-based data to diversified hea lthcare systems has led to more attempts by nurse researchers to inves tigate phenomena across clinical sites. Nurse executives increasingly are asked to justify resource allocation among organizations, and must compare patient-care practices within complex systems that are often geographically distant. This article describes the pitfalls encountere d and the progress made by researchers during a 4-year multisite, mult imethod clinical investigation collecting clinical outcome and organiz ational context data from seven hospitals.