Healthy Work Environments: Dashboards that impact in Critical Care & Trauma Areas

Purpose:
To provide the participants with strategies that work in critical care/trauma areas for impacting the quality of healthy work environments and increasing moral of staff using the NDNQI data and resources.

Significance:
The use of NDNQI data on critical care/trauma dashboards, helps to motivate staff to address issues that directly impact their work environment, increasing the quality of their work environments while promoting patient safety and quality of care.

Strategy and Implementation:
1) Dashboards for the critical care & trauma areas were created using the NDNQI data. 2) Patient Care and Workplace Councils were established to address the problems that these dashboards identified. 3) Various techniques were utilized that provided the staff with info needed to impact their decisions/recommendation. 4) The dashboards were then re-designed to monitor the effectiveness of the workplace council and patient care council recommendations. 5) The dashboards are updated annually to change the focus/impact. 6) The results were extremely positive and directly impacted the following areas: staff ownership, moral, absenteeism, attitudes, pride in their unit. 7) An added benefit from this program: It initiated healthy competition between the units that resulted in a direct impact on recruitment and retention.

Evaluation:
Success was measured using the re-design dashboard to monitor the expected outcome. Success was also measured in the completion of a staff survey within each department. Human Resources was able to provide direct numbers & financial impact figures regarding impact on recruitment/retention.

Implications for Practice:
1) Support from Nursing & Hospital Administration. 2) Nursing Staff must see "NEED" for the program/changes for their unit. 3) Extensive Education and training with the staff is necessary for successful implementation. Resulting in a serious time commitment from the Nurse Manager & Assistants.