What makes a team healthy?
This innovative communication tool can be used to empower nurse managers in their efforts toward healthier, more productive teamwork in hospital inpatient units. (See Figure 1.) The 5 Rights of a Healthy Team enables nurse managers to depersonalize tough conversations, create a nonjudgmental context, and provide structure for resolution-focused feedback. This communication tool has been utilized across 11 inpatient medical & surgical units within a large, Magnet®-recognized, 750-bed hospital. The associate director for nursing practice and nurse managers employed this tool across dozens of staff development conversations and reported increased efficiency of communication, increased empowerment of staff, and increased staff satisfaction as measured by Morehead/Press Ganey staff engagement surveys.
Figure 1:
Figure 1:
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Early positive impact warrants additional use and study. Increasingly, nursing science research indicates that empowerment of clinical nurses and nurse managers positively correlates with patient satisfaction. The gold standard of nursing quality—Magnet recognition—incorporates nurse empowerment as a proven strategy for improving outcomes in nurse staffing and clinical quality.3 According to Laschinger, Wong, and Grau, “Employee empowerment is a fundamental component of healthy work environments that promote nurse health and retention, and nursing leadership is key to creating these environments.”4 The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses identifies authentic leadership as one of the six standards imperative to achieve a healthy work environment.5 Further, Institute of Medicine reports specifically highlight the salient role of transformational leadership and emphasize that strong nursing leadership is necessary to implement effective management practices that create cultures of safety.6,7