Medical Staff Program for Improving Nursing Staff Performance
Introduction
Nursing practice is a challenging sphere where organizational culture is specifically important. Healthcare facility administration has to craft and implement effective training and development programs to ensure proper recruiting and retention of medical personnel (Cho & Han, 2018). This paper includes a brief proposal of a program aimed at improving nursing staff performance, retention, and recruitment practices, as well as a brief description of the organizational culture to be established.
Tasks and Performance Indicators
The quality of provided services is one of the highest priorities in the healthcare sector, so the assessment of nurses’ performance is a common and effective technique. This assessment is also an indispensable part of any performance improvement program as before improving some areas, it is critical to establish evaluation criteria. Diverse models of task and performance indicators have been introduced, so clinics can choose from a variety of approaches. Dubois et al. (2017) developed a comprehensive set of key performance indicators for nurses that can be employed in this healthcare facility. The researchers analyzed the effectiveness of the tool in the clinical setting and found that it contributed to performance improvement in nursing practice.
The set of these indicators is divided into several categories, with resources being the first aspect to consider. Resources-associated indicators include nursing staff intensity, care team composition, hours worked, and turnover (Dubois et al., 2017). The transformation of resources into services is linked to the following category of indicators, including care and discharge planning, symptom management, nursing interventions for prevention, care coordination, patient involvement, and responsiveness. The category of the transformation of services into particular patient conditions includes the following indicators: falls, medical errors, hospital-acquired infection, patient satisfaction, and patient’s ability to achieve proper self-care (Dubois et al., 2017). The current program aimed at performance improvement will entail the use of these indicators. The evaluation will be conducted regularly, and data will be collected with the help of the existing information system. Self-reports will also be employed to assess some of the indicators such as satisfaction,
Identifying Employees’ Strengths and Skills to Leverage Their Performance
In addition to the assessment of particular performance indicators, it is critical to identify and build on personnel’s strengths and skills. This approach contributes to the improvement of performance, as well as employee satisfaction (Gottlieb et al., 2021). The identification of nurses’ strengths and skills should be a continuous process that starts during every applicant’s recruitment. Wise recruitment is a key to organizational competitiveness, so HR professionals have to understand what skills and competencies are relevant in the departments and units (Gottlieb et al., 2021). The identification of skills and strengths of new nurses will be implemented with the help of created profiles.
These profiles will be regularly revisited and changed during the corresponding meetings with the supervisor. Each new nurse will have a mentor who will help the novice professional to elaborate on their profiles adding new skills and competencies once they are developed. Nurses working for six months and more will not have mentors but will have regular rounds with the nurse leader. These rounds will include discussions, reports, and sharing ideas, which is an element of learning organization culture that will be discussed below. During these discussions, nurses will revisit their profiles, identifying new strengths and skills (or making other changes).
Strategies to Improve Employee Performance
Close interaction and collaboration among nursing practitioners are some of the ways to improve employee performance. Nurses share ideas and concerns during regular meetings and develop effective solutions to address the encountered challenges (Gottlieb et al., 2021). Apart from this strategy, it is possible to use other methods aimed at improving employee performance by enhancing the quality of provided care and employee satisfaction. Continuous training is one of the central methods to achieve the established goals (Dubois et al., 2017). On-the-job training will be provided to personnel and address different aspects of nursing practice, including but not confined to the acquisition of specific skills to conduct clinical procedures and use technology. Other areas that will be covered during training sessions will be conflict management, time management, reflective practice, emotional intelligence, and cultural competency, among others. These skills and competencies are needed in the modern clinical setting for the provision of high-quality care.
Rewards and Incentives
Transformational leadership is the basis for the proposed performance improvement program. This paradigm implies close interaction and support of employees, as well as encouragement and inspiration. Rewards are also a part of this approach as employees’ internal and external motivation should be ensured. Proper organizational culture and working environment contribute to the enhancement of both types of motivation, while rewards can be mainly associated with external motivation (Dubois et al., 2017). During times of shrinking budgets, monetary incentives can be difficult to implement, but these types of rewards should still be used. Thus, annual bonuses to high-performers and smaller monetary rewards every month can enhance nurses’ morale.
Additionally, increased flexibility can be a good reward incentive for many employees. For instance, taking leaves, when necessary, and following a properly established procedure has proved to be an effective strategy (Ravichandran & Mishra, 2017). Nurses find this opportunity as an important privilege, although it can take some time to implement this change. Employees should have the right to take a certain number of leaves within a particular time frame that is agreed upon in advance. Flexibility is an important premise for the effectiveness of this initiative, so nurse leaders should pay specific attention to staffing.
Vision for the Organizational Culture
People are the biggest asset in this healthcare facility, so the focus on employees’ needs is important. The creation of an appropriate working environment can be achieved by the establishment of a culture of learning (Ravichandran & Mishra, 2017). Although important elements of this organizational culture have already been implemented, the clinic still needs to undertake multiple steps. As far as the culture is concerned, its basic components are constant change, positive attitudes towards change, effective collaboration, and employees’ commitment to the set goals.
The culture of learning entails nurses’ training and their active participation in the development of new standards and practices aimed at improving the quality of provided care. Each nurse practitioner has to be able to express concerns or offer solutions, which implies the development of a set of communication channels. Regular discussions, formal reports, and corporate emails for memos (reflecting solutions, new practices, standards, guidelines, and concerns) will make this communication effective.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is necessary to note that the performance of this healthcare facility can be enhanced by the implementation of a new performance-centered program. The proposed initiative involves the establishment of organizational culture of learning. Nursing professionals working in such a working environment will be highly motivated and committed as they will have an opportunity to grow professionally and feel empowered as their voices will be heard.
References
Cho, H., & Han, K. (2018). Associations among nursing work environment and health-promoting behaviors of nurses and nursing performance quality: A multilevel modeling approach. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(4), 403-410. Web.
Dubois, C. A., D’amour, D., Brault, I., Dallaire, C., Déry, J., Duhoux, A., Lavoie-Tremblay, M., Mathieu, L., Karemere, H., & Zufferey, A. (2017). Which priority indicators to use to evaluate nursing care performance? A discussion paper. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 73(12), 3154-3167. Web.
Gottlieb, L. N., Gottlieb, B., & Bitzas, V. (2021). Creating empowering conditions for nurses with workplace autonomy and agency: How healthcare leaders could be guided by strengths-based nursing and healthcare leadership (SBNH-L). Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 13, 169-181. Web.
Ravichandran, N., & Mishra, R. (2017). Toward building HR competencies: A shift from the non-learning toward the learning organization. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 11(3), 233-238. Web.