Nurse_Productivity

With the overwhelming nursing shortage in hospitals, nurse morale can become low. Nurses can become hostile, depressed, and burned out. They may exhibit a lack of desire to treat patients compassionately or effectively, and may feel a lack of emotional support from management. Low morale may lead to lower productivity, higher turnover, and resentment towards management. The cliché that “happy employees will create happy customers” is of importance in establishing good productivity within an organization. This pilot study/quas-experimental hypothesis is grounded on the theory that unit management’s emotional support towards nurses, may impede or enhance nurse’s productivity and morale, and play a crucial role in the productivity process. The null hypothesis is management’s emotional support towards nurses, play no part in nursing productivity or morale. The true experimental study is the effect of emotional support from management will increase nurse productivity, as evidenced by higher scores, both from the Likert scale questionnaire posttest, and productivity post-scores. The null hypothesis is nurse productivity is not related to nurse’s emotional support, as evidenced by pre and post Likert scale test scores, and post productivity scoring. My research plan would include variables/steps involving nursing staff, unit management, and patient’s perceived care support. Cluster sampling would be utilized over a two month span, consisting of patients and nursing staff, from two- 18-bed med-surg units within a community hospital. Data collection for nurse’s years of service, absenteeism, tardiness, and terminations among the two units would be collected prior to the study and monitored during the study. Unit patient and nurse staff means would be collected. Productivity’s mean results, including staffing mix, patient-nurse ratios, and patient intensities, both pre and post study, would be collected. Independent variables, such as Pre and post study Likert scale satisfaction surveys and questionnaires would be implemented, to project the patient’s overall, perceived care support from nursing staff, to include, but not limited to: compassionate care, offered information about the plan of care, teaching, and assistance in a timely manner, and time given to express concerns. Independent variables, such as a pre and post study Likert scale questionnaire would be given to the nursing staff, to collect their perception of current job satisfaction and emotional support from management. One unit would receive the new applied methods from management, and the other unit, as the control unit, to receive no additional or change in support. Pre and post pilot questions would include: manager shows ongoing support, gives opportunity for schedule adjustments to meet individual needs, overall job satisfaction improvement in the past month, feeing part of a dedicated team, opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge, opportunity to take part and express oneself in unit meetings. Variables used to promote emotional support and achievable productivity would include one hour per shift, weekly "hands-on" patient assistance from management, weekly snack-tray delivery to unit nurses per shift, thank-you card sent to each nurse's home address for a “job well done” within the two month study, staff meeting per month to include interactive expressions of emotional thought, concerns, and viewpoints of work including ongoing organizational news, self-scheduling including split shift flexibility and control, ongoing bi-weekly skill/knowledge training, one hour bi-weekly devotion to “fun-time” classes within the unit, that offer exercise, dance, crafts, cooking contests, and role play consisting of ways to deal with difficult confrontations. Limitations exist due to the unknown patient intensities of each unit on any given day, nurse participation and motivation, patient-nurse ratio variances each day, patient participation in completing questionnaire, unavoidable nurse absenteeism or terminations due to causes beyond sickness, or code of conduct, such as death in a family, moving out of the area, or jury duty. Dependent variables are the increase or decrease in productivity scores, morale of nurses as evidence by posttest scores, improvements in absenteeism, and scores from patient post-questionnaires. The conclusion of the study would be to shed light on factors needing improvements in nurse morale, emotional support, work environments, and turnover. Furthermore, to understand possible factors contributing to, or decreasing the levels of productivity within the healthcare system and overall patient care delivery.