American Organization of Nurse Executives Annual Meeting Addresses Actionable Ways to Improve Patient and Employee Engagement

There were 3,400 nurse leaders in attendance at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Organization of Nurse Executives in Fort Worth, Texas. Day 2 of the meeting had a central focus on connection and the importance of connecting with patients and colleagues to deliver better care.

A wide range of speakers were in attendance, discussing a range of topics including closing the gap in care disparities among races and urging attendees to include empathy exercises in their staff training. A speaker from the Medical University of South Carolina, Anton Gunn, compared nursing and medicine to social work, emphasizing the point that bonding with patients and colleagues elevates the value of care that nurses provide.

Recent nursing graduates excel at electronic documentation and social media, but nurse leaders feel that new nurses are lacking soft skills. Nurse leaders can close this gap by teaching their nursing staff actionable strategies for engagement with their patients. There is a need for improvement in patient bedside experience, but nurse leaders can’t forget about urging empathy amongst staff relationships as well.

Values-based Hospital Leadership Coach, Joe Tye, addressed employee’s sense of belonging, recognition, and ownership of their job. If nurse leaders operate workplaces where toxic emotions and negativity are simply not tolerated in employees, then nurses will be more comfortable and happy in their workplaces and better able to bond with their peers.

Nursing leaders should work to create a positive workplace environment for their employees, and to hold them accountable for how they contribute to the workplace as a whole. Tye believes that by creating a positive workplace culture, nurse leaders can more effectively handle and inspire their staff. A pleasant and collaborative workplace creates emotionally intelligent and hardworking nurses both amongst their staff relationships and the care experience that their patients receive.