HOUSTON, TX—A Houston-area Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) received an Evidence-based Practice Certification (EBP-C) recently from the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare at The Ohio State University College of Nursing.
Christopher J. Mazza, DNAP, CRNA, EBP-C, of Friendswood, and member of the Texas Association of Nurse Anesthetists (TxANA), completed his EBP certification, making him part of a select group of healthcare practitioners who practice with this credential. Mazza is recognized as the first CRNA in Texas and the second CRNA in the United States to receive the certification.
The Evidence-based Practice Certification (EBP-C) demonstrates expertise in EBP to implement best practices to improve healthcare quality, safety, and costs. Individuals who successfully complete the certification are entitled to state that they hold an EBP-C from the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare. A certification recipient has achieved recognition as an expert to lead, mentor, and/or teach evidence-based practice methodologies.
“A certification in evidence-based practice demonstrates that the recipient is an expert in EBP,” said Cindy Beckett, Ph.D., RNC-OB, LCCE, CHRC, LSS-BB, EBP-C, Assistant Director of the Academic Core and Program Director of the Evidence-based Practice Certification in the Fuld National Institute for EBP and Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing in the College of Nursing. “Each person who obtains this certification can lead and mentor integration of best practice changes to positively impact patient care, as well as individual and organizational goals.”
“The meaning of this certification achievement demonstrates the endless continuum of learning that never stops within our wonderful CRNA profession,” Mazza said. “As for me personally, I set out to learn something new each day by reading, observing, or just listening to others discuss the volumes of medical changes constantly occurring around us.”
According to the Fuld National Institute for EBP, there are up to 400,000 unintended patient deaths in the United States every year. Additionally, receiving healthcare is the country’s third leading cause of death. The Institute of Medicine established a goal that by 2020, 90 percent of all healthcare decisions would be evidence-based. Today, only 30 percent of decisions are evidence-based.
“I consider myself a late bloomer so when the program director, Cindy Beckett, told me that I was the first CRNA in Texas to become certified, I was amazed,” Mazza said. “Learning in-depth about EBP enhances my ability to perform anesthesia today with the latest best practice literature, patient preferences, and proven medical science guiding my work.”
Mazza encourages his fellow healthcare practitioners, especially CRNAs, to pursue ways of advancing their education, through programs like EBP.
“Our CRNA leadership community is always looking for ways to improve our profession through education advancement, which protects our work by using best practices as our baseline in the professional literature that proves CRNA quality,” Mazza said. “Fuld National Institute for EBP is the perfect tool to demonstrate that our CRNA knowledge base is coming from and using a credible source to verify and legitimatize that our doctoral EBP scholarly project work is soundly based in EBP measures.”
For more information about the certification, visit the Fuld National Institute for EBP’s website at https://fuld.nursing.osu.edu/about-overview.
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