Connecting Patients' Perceptions of Nurses' Daily Care Actions, Organizational Human Caring Culture, and Overall Hospital Rating in Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Surveys.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to connect patients' perceptions of nurses' daily care actions with patients' overall ratings of their hospital experience and hospitals' human caring culture. BACKGROUND: The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is a national standardized survey measuring patients' hospital experience. Current literature lacks the connections between patients' perceptions of nurses' daily care actions and their overall hospital experience measured by the HCAHPS survey. METHODS: This is a correlational study based on the HCAHPS surveys from patients discharged from a hospital in the United States. Correlations were conducted between patients' perceptions of nurses' daily care actions and overall hospital experience. RESULTS: A total of 3,258 (16.6%) patients returned the HCAHPS survey between January and May 2019. Significant relationships were found among patients' perceptions of nurses' daily care actions, hospitals' caring culture, and overall experience. CONCLUSION: Nurses' daily care actions significantly contribute to favorable patients' overall hospital ratings on HCAHPS.

Exploring the Relationship Between Contact Frequency, Leader-Member Relationships, and Patient Safety Culture.

OBJECTIVE: This study uses Leader-Member Exchange theory to explore the associations between contact frequency (CF) of nurse leaders and their team members, leader-member relationship, and patient safety culture. BACKGROUND: Leader-member relationships are an important part of patient safety culture development. The behaviors of leaders to achieve these relationships are unknown. This study explores CF as a leader behavior to improve patient safety culture. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey of bedside nurses (N = 746) from an 8-hospital system. RESULTS: A significant association was found between relationship strength and patient safety culture; CF's effect on relationship and patient safety culture was demonstrated. CONCLUSION: Contact frequency may support relationships between leaders and members and improve patient safety culture on nursing units. Future studies should explore factors that could be enhancing and limiting CF.

Video Messaging as an Innovative Practice for CNO Communication.

In an effort to meet the challenge of facilitating communication between the chief nursing officer (CNO) and the nursing staff in a large academic medical center, an innovative approach was developed. Brainstorming with the Media Services Team, a plan was devised that created an avenue for sustained connection between the CNO and the nursing staff and a vehicle for staff to connect with one another: video segments known as Nurses Notebook.

Transition of New Graduate Nurses to the Workforce: Challenges and Solutions in the Changing Health Care Environment.

New graduate nurses face a host of challenges that impact successful transition to practice. Health care organizations thus need to understand how changes in the health care landscape impact new graduate nurses who are transitioning to the practice environment. This commentary discusses challenges and possible solutions to successful transition of new graduates into the work environment.

Interdisciplinary Diabetes Care: A New Model for Inpatient Diabetes Education.

A patient-centered interdisciplinary diabetes care model was implemented at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, N.C., a 909-bed tertiary care teaching hospital, for the purpose of providing all patients with diabetes clear and concise instructions on diabetes survival skills. Survival skills education during hospitalization is needed for safe transition to community resources for continued and expanded diabetes self-management education. This article describes the process used to develop, implement, and evaluate the model. This initiative achieved substantial cost savings, with no significant changes in length of stay (LOS) or diabetes readmission rates. This patient-centered model demonstrates how a team of interdisciplinary health care professionals can integrate services in providing care for a large population of patients with chronic disease.

Nursing education and transition to the work environment: a synthesis of national reports.

Over the past 10 years and longer, national entities have worked within their organizations and with coalitions of other stakeholders to address issues facing the nursing profession. As a part of this work, the current state of the educational system for preparation of nurses has been discussed, as well as the need for strategies to enhance nursing students' transition from the academic environment to the work environment. This article presents a review and synthesis of national reports published from 1995 to April 2005 that contain recommendations for nursing education and the transition of nurses to the work environment. Common themes and recommendations across reports are identified and reported. Educators and others can learn from the collective wisdom of previous work and use this information to aid in development of plans and policy initiatives for development of the future nursing educational infrastructure.

Learning from the best: the benefits of a structured health policy fellowship in developing nursing health policy leaders.

This article describes the experience of a nurse leader engaged in a state Health Policy Fellowship instituted in North Carolina by the North Carolina Center for Nursing (NCCN). This Health Policy Fellowship is designed to provide a focused practicum in major aspects of state-level health policy with emphasis on the role of the nurse leader. The program design includes exposure to experienced mentors with diverse areas of focus to learn from observation and interaction. This article describes the experience of a state Health Policy Fellow and includes discussion of understandings derived from interacting with key state stakeholders in the health policy arena and pearls of wisdom from the policy fellowship experience.

North Carolina Center for Nursing health policy fellowship: a strategy for developing nursing leaders for the future.

In the midst of ongoing concern about succession planning to develop the next generation of nursing leaders, the profession cannot afford to overlook succession planning in regard to the next generation of nurse leaders in health policy. This article describes a project of the North Carolina Center for Nursing that provides a fellowship in state-level health policy for North Carolina nurses who have completed a graduate level health policy course. Policy fellows are exposed to health policy analysis through the public policy arena, regulatory and administrative arenas, and organizational and institutional arenas. As part of this journey, all major state stakeholders in health policy are involved in the mentoring process. The North Carolina Center for Nursing Health Policy Fellowship is described here as a potential model related to policy initiatives in other states.