Solve the nursing shortage by caring for patients?
Nov 6th, 2009 | By Jeff | Category: Featured, Hospital Staffing, Nurse Burnout, Patient ExperienceI just read an article about an initiative in New Jersey led by the New Jersey Hospital Association’s Institute for Quality and Patient Safety, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation aimed at educating and supporting nurses so they can increase the amount of time they spend at with patients and in the process improving their job satisfaction. In turn this should help address the nursing shortage by stopping or at least slowing down the leaving of nurses from the profession.
The hope is that by giving nurses, particularly more experienced ones, a chance to stay connected to patient care they will stay passionate about caring for others and stay in the profession. The program is receiving a substantial funding of a $732,000 grant and will focus on three goals:
I must admit I had never thought about this connection before, that of nurse satisfaction improving the closer a nurse can get back to delivering patient care. This is very understandable. The extra duties that that get added to nurses’ jobs are most often not what motivated them to get into nursing in the first place. So why not address the burnout problem by letting them do what drew them to the profession in the first place.
What about your state or hospital for that matter? Are there any initiatives underway to help nurses get closer to the patient? What about on a more micro-level? What are you doing in your nursing units?
Related posts:
- Demystifying healthcare staffing: How can hospitals make sure they are staffed appropriately in a nursing shortage? When it comes to staffing your hospital it important that you...
- Build your best nursing unit Right now having a full and consistent nursing staff has...
- Can special talents of your nurses improve patient care? I came across an article on HealthLeadersMedia.com the other day...
- Refreshing nursing skills? A post and comment thread on a great blog over...
- Work life balance for nurse managers We have seen a lot of interest in nursing staff...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
As a consultant for the medical staffing industry I have seen many changes within the industry. At times we have lost focus the value of nursing, these article I agree with in that giving nurses more time with patients is paramount in hospitals. It is refreshing to see that this is not a concept appreciated by few. At our website http://www.vismedical.com, we appreciate this concept and certainly value the role nursing take.