Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System South Hill, Virginia, United States
Title: The Impact of Team Leader Rounding on Nurse Engagement
Abstract : The evolving healthcare landscape moves nurse engagement to the forefront of health system goal-setting. Job satisfaction, retention, turnover, and patient outcomes are impacted by nursing engagement. Studies have found that nurse leader visibility and communication positively influence nursing staff engagement.
This pre/post quality improvement project was performed on a pediatric unit in a large academic medical center. It explored the implementation of structured nurse leader rounding, emphasizing one-on-one interactions between the nurse leader and bedside nurses. Active engagement with a nurse leader allowed nurses opportunities to disclose real-time successes as well as provide direct bedside caregiver recommendations for improvement. Nursing engagement was assessed using five domains focusing on nurses’ perceptions of being treated with respect, consideration of their job satisfaction, receiving recognition, communication from their nurse leader, and comfort with discussing workplace issues with their nurse leader. Each domain was scored using a five-point Likert scale. Pre-intervention, engagement of the bedside nursing staff was greater than one Likert point below organizational and national benchmarks. Post-intervention, nursing engagement scores were 0.1 and 0.12 points above organizational and national benchmarks, respectively. The domain focusing on respect from their nurse leader was significant in that the post-intervention engagement score was 4.58, a 1.18-point increase compared to the pre-intervention engagement score of 3.4.
Conclusions of this project demonstrate the impact of frequent and meaningful communication between nursing leadership and bedside nurses. Nurses felt heard and supported, increasing their engagement and improving their feelings towards their nurse leader. The nurse leader also felt relationships with the bedside nurses improved.
