| Thursday, 20 July 2006: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM | |||
| An Innovative Process for Work Environment Enhancement: An Analysis of Final Data and Lessons Learned | |||
| Learning Objective #1: Describe work environment components that may have impact on nurse outcomes and of nurse-sensitive quality indicators. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Discuss the potential of incorporating the described processes to other health care environments. | |||
| In 2002, Meridian Health developed a model of nursing practice that was designed to address nurse recruitment and retention issues. The model is patient-centered and mandates professional nurses to render effective, competent and collaborative care, which is supported by education, clinical expertise, research and shared governance. Three prototype units, called “Model of Care”(MOC) units, were launched in January 2003. The purpose of these units was to embody structural changes aimed at supporting the new practice model by improving the nursing work environment. In October 2003, Meridian Health received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, New Jersey Health Initiatives program to enhance the work culture environment of these newly-developed MOC nursing units, which had already operationalized “hard” components of the new model of care such as increased staffing, a “no-float” policy, dedicated nurse educators, and additional valued-added technology during the prior 12-month period. A process was developed by which nursing staff were supported to develop, implement and evaluate evidence-based practice and quality improvement initiatives. This process began on three MOC units on three hospital campuses, then was replicated and evaluated annually in four “second generation” and four “third” generation” MOC units. Evaluation of perception of the work environment was conducted using the Pennsylvania Nurse survey, which includes the Nursing Work Index-Revised (NWI-R). In addition, several nurse-sensitive patient outcomes were systematically reported and evaluated. This symposium will describe the processes and projects that were implemented as well as present an evaluation of the project in terms of nurse outcomes and of nurse-sensitive quality indicators over a two-year period. | |||
| Organizer: | Theresa Wurmser, PhD, MPH, RN | ||
| Evaluation of Cultural Transformation in the Work Environment Jane Bliss-Holtz, DNSc, BC | |||
| Developing a Foundation for Building an Evidence-Based Protocol through a Rapid Cycle Process Susan M. Torres, MSN, RN, BC | |||
| Implementation of Evidence Based Practice (EBP) on Model of Care Units Christine Hedges, PhD, RN | |||