Building a healthy work environment: a nursing resource team perspective.

Abstract

Leadership and staff from the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) Nursing Resource Team (NRT), including members of their Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Council, attended the first Southern Ontario Nursing Resource Team Conference (SONRTC), held March 2012 in Toronto. The SONRTC highlighted healthy work environments (HWEs), noting vast differences among the province's various organizations. Conversely, CQI Council members anecdotally acknowledged similar inconsistencies in HWEs across the various inpatient departments at LHSC. In fact, the mobility of the NRT role allows these nurses to make an unbiased observation about the culture, behaviours and practices of specific units as well as cross-reference departments regarding HWEs. Studies have documented that HWEs have a direct impact on the quality of patient care. Furthermore, the literature supports a relationship between HWEs and nurse job satisfaction. Based on this heightened awareness, the NRT CQI Council aimed to investigate HWEs at LHSC. The American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) Standards for Establishing and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments was adapted in developing a survey for measuring HWEs based on the perceptions of NRT staff. Each of the departments was evaluated in terms of the following indicators: skilled communication, true collaboration, effective decision-making, appropriate staffing, meaningful recognition and authentic leadership (AACN 2005). Ultimately, the Building a Healthy Work Environment: A Nursing Resource Team Perspective survey was employed with NRT nurses at LHSC, and data was collected for use by leadership and staff for creating HWE strategies aimed at improving the quality of patient care.