Measuring organizational readiness for nursing research programs.

Nursing research programs are important innovations for health services organizations (HSOs). Evidence supports the positive impact that successful programs have on both clinical practice and patient outcomes. In the current era of scarce health care resources, decision makers must be able to accurately judge HSO readiness for nursing research programs to facilitate their success. Judging innovation readiness is an important and complex process for decision makers. An Innovation Readiness Scale (IRS) was developed from research-based HSO contextual cues identified by nurse researchers as supportive of successful hospital-based nursing research programs. The IRS provides decision makers with a measure by which to judge HSO readiness for nursing research programs. Psychometric results are reported from a pilot and actual test of the IRS in two urban acute care settings involved in nursing research program innovation.