NURSE/PATIENT EMPOWERMENT

Mikayla Jo Bartlett

For a nurse to be able to empower patients, I believe the nurse themselves must be empowered! A quote I hear often is “fill your cup first and the let it overflow onto others.” How can one be empowered without working or being in an empowering environment? According to Cicolini, G., et al (2013), an empowering work environment has four empowerment structures for their employees, these structures are: Information, resources, support, and opportunities. With these strategies of empowerment, it not only allows the nurse to feel supported and capable of their job, but it also gives them the resources needed to empower, educate, and nurture their patients in the way they need. We cannot help patients without being educated on what we are doing to help them. We cannot help patients without resources in front of us to help them. We cannot help patients without adequate support of our leaders and teammates. We cannot help our patients without an opportunity to grow and learn new things as nurses. As far as strategies, I believe that organizational empowerment in nursing should be used everywhere to allow not only the nurses, but the patients reach their full potential.

The purpose of the NDNQI was to create knowledge that affect the quality of nursing care, i.e. the link between staffing and patient outcomes (Montalvo, I. 2007). While the NDNQI gives us so much information and standards into what needs improved at each facility, there’s no real education or rhyme or reason WHY these things need improved. I know that sounds odd, but at my facility we recently (in the last year) have gone through a lot of massive changes from leadership, to charting, to med changes and everything in between. Upon the dramatic change of leadership came a dramatic change in the way things needed to be documented and VERY specific things that needed documented. It was very frustrating at first because we were being micromanaged over and over in a single day to complete these tasks with no real understanding of why. After months of change and complaints and misunderstanding, our leadership team came together and created a way to explain why this certain documentation was so important, and to our greatest surprise it was to increase patient outcomes, when in our heads it had to do with “winning” or “excelling” at something. So while it started out frustrating and as a misunderstanding, our institution helped empower the nurses with background information and understanding of the importance of our cares in order to then empower our patients and increase quality of care.

I feel like I am empowered by my coworkers every day. I don’t have one example because they are constant.  It is like a waterfall affect, one person goes the extra mile for one patient and next thing we know we are all doing one small thing to empower a patient of ours which in turn leads to better quality of care and safety for our patients. I also read once that burnout is something we think can be fixed with a break or time off work, but after several studies it was found that the best “cure” for burnout is creating a lasting relationship with our patients, and as I use that to help keep me going, I also encourage others around me to do the same.

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Cicolini, G., Comparcini, D., & Simonetti, V. (2013). Workplace empowerment and nurses’ job satisfaction: a systematic literature review.  Journal of Nursing Management,  22(7), 855–871.  https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12028Links to an external site.

Montalvo, I. (2007, September 30).  The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators® (NDNQI®) | OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. Ojin.nursingworld.org. https://ojin.nursingworld.org/table-of-contents/volume-12-2007/number-3-september-2007/nursing-quality-indicators/