Initiative aimed at retaining nurses, improving patient care

Heartbeats: Initiative aimed at retaining nurses, improving patient care
November 10, 2009

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/artic...911100305/1040

With an ongoing nursing shortage, a major transformation in the nursing work environment is needed so health-care facilities can continue to provide safe, effective quality care to patients.

Very few areas in nation are as saturated by hospitals and other health-care outfits as Central Jersey, so this need is especially important here.
To help address this issue, the New Jersey Hospital Association's Institute for Quality and Patient Safety, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has launched a major three-year initiative, "Transforming Care at the Bedside," that will train and support nurses so they can spend more time with their patients while increasing job satisfaction.
"We need to increase the amount of time nurses spend providing direct patient care and investigate ways to keep our more experienced nurses in the workforce longer while helping them to maintain their enthusiasm and passion caring for others," said Aline Holmes, director of the Institute for Quality and Patient Safety. "This project is the transforming innovation for improving the work environment in which professional nurses practice."
To help nurses achieve these goals, the initiative will:

Provide education and training in performance improvement for front-line staff nurses, which will give them the tools they need to implement improvements on their units and identify and test changes in their work environment.

Empower staff nurses to make the changes needed to increase the amount of time spent on direct care on their unit.

Provide education and training for nurse managers to help them facilitate their staff's work and provide the leadership necessary to make changes.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has given $732,000 to this project, and some of those funds will go toward a Monday, Nov. 16, to Wednesday, Nov. 18, learning session, which will be attended by 47 of the Garden State's hospitals.
"We also will develop a toolkit and educational resources for hospitals so they can spread these changes throughout their organization," Holmes said. "We plan to measure the effectiveness of TCAB by monitoring nursing retention and turnover rates, patient safety and by surveying staff, managers and chief nurse executives."
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More information is available by visiting www.ihi.org.