Title : Empowering and engaging unlicensed nursing personnel
Abstract:
Unlicensed nursing personnel make up more than forty percent of the medical surgical unit team. Therefore, their role is important and plays an essential role with patient safety, quality, and unit engagement. Due to the COVID pandemic, significant disruptions occurred on the unit. These had direct implications on turnover, morale, and engagement on the team. This was even more evident in the unlicensed nursing personnel team, creating challenges that affected the team's engagement and ability to maintain the highest level of care. Like many other healthcare organizations, the challenges faced were universal. To empower and engage the unlicensed nursing personnel to work to the top of their scope while exhibiting the mission, vision, and values of the organization. The nursing leadership team identified the need to support the unlicensed nursing personnel and proposed a weekly structured huddle, brief, focused meeting, for this group. This huddle is held every Thursday morning in the conference room. The meeting's structure consists of a round table reviewing the organization's mission, vision, and values, reviewing the weekly topic, and caregiver recognition from staff and patients. Since implementation, outcomes can be measured in quality, safety, and engagement. The unit has had one hundred percent participation for the engagement survey for two years and a 0.74 increase with the Safety Culture Index. The Safety Culture Index is an assessment of the employees’ perceptions of safety and culture within the unit. Indirect outcomes have been observed in a decrease in falls and elimination of annual CLABSIs occurrences in 2024. These huddles provide tools for the unlicensed nursing personnel to deliver safe, hi-quality care, work to the top of their scope, and improve job satisfaction and retention on the medical surgical unit while exhibiting the mission, vision, and values of the organization.
