Althea Mighten
NYU Langone’s Hospital for Joint Diseases, USA
Title: Leadership Structures to empower professional development
Biography
Biography: Althea Mighten
Abstract
There is a distinct and proven link between nursing leadership, nurse development and patient outcomes. Creating structures that empowers the nurses to engage and develop professionally will be essential to higher quality patient care and the levels of certification.
One empowering structure developed was the shared governance councils system. These councils recognized the professional responsibility of the registered nurse to achieve a highest level of competency that was exemplified by certification. The recruitment and retention council utilized education fairs to promote certification. Other structure developed was recognition strategies that included wall plaques on each unit of those certified, awards during nurse’s week and involvement in the professional practice program, and financial incentives.
Certification rate is interwoven into the structures of the Professional Practice Model (Shared Decision Making, Reward and Recognition, Professional Relationships, and Care Delivery). As part of the Nursing Strategic Plan a structure standard was created to support and encourage a culture of excellence by having a nurse specialty certification. This included monetary incentives and reward recognition program including professional practice program or “clinical ladder”.
Outcomes:The relationship between structural empowerment and certification within the shared governance structure has been effective in raising certification rates to 46.6% which represents a 50% increase in 6 years. 28.8% of those who are certified have more than one certification in a nursing specialty. An exemplar was received on initial Magnet Designation. The 2014 NDNQI RN satisfaction survey for professional development was 67.5% and professional status was 69.6%, both were above the mean.