Developing a supportive environment for our healthcare workers
View File(s)
- Author(s)
- Details
-
Kim Tharp-Barrie, RN, SANE; Tracy Williams, RN
- Sigma Affiliation
- Iota Zeta
- Contributor Affiliation(s)
- Norton Healthcare, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Visitor Statistics
Visits vs Downloads
Visitors - World Map
Top Visiting Countries
Country | Visits |
---|
Top Visiting Cities
City | Visits |
---|
Visits (last 6 months)
Downloads (last 6 months)
Popular Works for Tharp-Barrie, Kim by View
Title | Page Views |
---|
Popular Works for Tharp-Barrie, Kim by Download
Title | Downloads |
---|
View Citations
Citations
Session presented on Sunday, March 19, 2017:
In preparation for a three year strategic plan, our organization recently surveyed nurses throughout our five hospital system to understand how we could better maintain and protect our health care staff. We found that staffing shortages, long work hours, retention issues, and inability to maintain a satisfactory work-life balance were the main issues affecting staff. Knowing that these stressors affect employees' relationships at all levels, our leadership has developed a number of programs that encourage a healthy workplace where employees feel heard, valued, and experience personal satisfaction. Our organization created an Institute for Nursing (I4N) to support the professional growth and practice of nursing. The I4N serves nurses in the system in a variety of ways through their four centers: Nursing Practice, Professional Development, Nursing Outreach, and Nursing Research. The I4N provides a supportive environment for health care workers and has taken steps to insure that our work environment is one that is safe, empowering, and satisfying. Our organization has a chief nursing office in each health care facility to support and give leadership to nursing issues. We have developed a Virtual Employee Model which supports programs that are used to develop the physical, mental and social well-being of all health care workers. We offer pre-college programs that assist employees to realize their dream of attaining a college degree and clinical advancement and leadership development programs which promote life-long learning. We have developed several new programs to attract, train and retain college students and graduate nurses. In order to prepare our new staff to make a successful transition from student to practice, we have developed an apprentice program, an extern program and a new nurse residency program. The purpose of the Nurse Apprenticeship Program is to intentionally invest in future nurses prior to graduation from an accredited nursing program. The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of patient care, as well as address the need for additional, well-trained nurses post-graduation. The objectives for the program are to create a two year, tiered experience to follow the guidelines for an accredited apprentice program; exposure and experience in specialty areas prior to graduation; decreased orientation time post-graduation; and decreased turnover by matching their clinical interest with unit specialty prior to graduation. The purpose of the Nurse Extern Program was to allow nursing students the opportunity for a summer of clinical immersion. The seven week program ran from May to July, where a nursing student was paired with a licensed nurse on a unit of their stated preference. Their clinical skills were validated prior to admittance by a nursing faculty at their enrolled school. The objectives for the new Nurse Residency Program are to produce an increase in new graduate nurse retention rates at the six month, one year, and three year marks and to engage new graduate nurses in activities that foster immersion into our system, strengthen nursing practice, and promote professional development. The monthly three hour workshops are designed to support the new graduate nurse's professional development, evidence-based practice understanding, and enhanced confidence in professional interactions with peers and colleagues, and reflection time. We understand that communication must be open, honest, and allow all parties the opportunity to express themselves. This creates an opportunity for open dialogue, sharing of ideas and team problem solving. In order to encourage honest, positive dialogue we offer continuing education classes to inspire constructive dialogue and behavior among our staff such as lateral violence, diversity in the workplace, andself-care for healthcare, to name a few. We work to identify factors contributing to stress and burnout and learn techniques to balance life physically, mentally and spiritually. We offer a free program for counseling for all employees and their families. We have an NGood Health Program which provides information on healthy food and healthy behaviors which resulted in our organization winning the 2015 Business First Healthiest Employers Award in its category of 5,000 to 49,000 employees. We have an award winning new employee orientation program and onboarding to bring people into our organization with information about what resources are available to them and what the expectations the organization has for them. A healthy work environment means providing one that is safe, empowering and satisfying; an environment where staff has the opportunity to work in a place of 'physical, mental, and social well-being,' supporting optimal health and safety. With the programs in place, our organization is poised to continue to provide a healthy work environment where employees feel heard, valued, and experience personal satisfaction. These efforts earned designation as a National League for Nursing (NLN) Center of Excellence 2013-2017 based on 'their visionary leadership sets the standard for nursing education to build a strong and diverse nursing workforce to advance the nation's health, guided by the core values of caring, integrity, diversity and excellence.' Learning Objectives: The leaner will be able to identify benefits of gaining revelation to self-growth, blind spots and authenticity. The learner will be able to identify programs that foster immersion into the health care organization that strengthen nursing practice and promote professional development.
Creating Healthy Work Environments 2017: Best Practices in Clinical and Academic Settings. Held at the JW Marriott, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Items submitted to a conference/event were evaluated/peer-reviewed at the time of abstract submission to the event. No other peer-review was provided prior to submission to the Henderson Repository, unless otherwise noted.
Type | Presentation |
Acquisition | Proxy-submission |
Review Type | Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host |
Format | Text-based Document |
Evidence Level | N/A |
Research Approach | N/A |
Keywords | Self-Care; Future; Culture |
Name | Creating Healthy Work Environments 2017 |
Host | Sigma Theta Tau International |
Location | Indianapolis, Indiana, USA |
Date | 2017 |
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subjects.
-
Driving evidence-based practice through remote and/or mobile applications
Tharp-Barrie, Kim; Williams, Tracy (2017-07-18)Purpose: The pilot study investigated the efficacy of a mobile application designed to facilitate critical thinking and clinical reasoning at the bedside, specifically related to nurse-sensitive quality indicators and core ... -
Succession planning: Nurse leaders learning from leaders to promote workforce excellence
Tharp-Barrie, Kim; Williams, Tracy (2016-09-26)Session presented on Monday, September 19, 2016: The Nurse Leadership Intensive was designed specifically for nurse leaders wishing to advance to nurse executive positions and includes three tiers of nursing leaders: nurse ... -
COVID-19 Resource: Staying positive when surrounded by negativity
Thompson, Renee A.; Tharp-Barrie, Kim; Clancy, Cheri (Sigma Theta Tau International, 2020-05-05)As nurses we often hear and see the worst. This has been intensified in the time of COVID-19. How do you keep positive when your colleagues are negative saying "I can't take it anymore," or "I'm so tired of this place," ... -
Promotion of a healthy work environment via the development of a nursing restoration space
Gedzyk-Nieman, Stephanie A.; Applequist, Mary; Shilkaitis, Mary; Bonomi, JudithNursing, although rewarding, can at times strain nurses physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As the primary care givers to patients, it is important that the nursing staff have opportunities to care for themselves. ... -
Supporting nurse well-being is crucial to improving our nation's health
Driscoll, Kathy; Hartman, Rhonda; Hess, DeboraBy listening to its nurses, one national healthcare organization prioritized a multi-faceted strategy to support nurse well-being and resilience-building. Their standing desk initiative, designed to reduce sitting time for ...