How to Do Nurse Recognition – During Nurses Week and Beyond

How to Do Nurse Recognition – During Nurses Week and Beyond

I started my career as a nurse 35 years ago. Thirteen of those years I spent up in the air as a flight nurse, responding via helicopter to the most urgent calls. We responded to accidents, shootings, strokes, heart attacks, you name it.

Because we were outside the four walls of our hospital the majority of the time, hospital leaders didn’t have the same on-the-ground visibility into the work that we were doing. And while I’ve never known a nurse who got into the field for the recognition that comes along with the work, the fact that the work we were doing to save lives happened outside the hospital meant that when we pulled off something incredible, we were the only witnesses to it.

Then, one night, around 10 p.m., we responded to a terrible multi-vehicle wreck on a major highway. Traffic was backed up for miles on both sides while we came in and did our job – triaging patients in the dark to find the one in most emergent need (others went by ground), stabilizing him as quickly as possible with intubation, IVs, and packaging for transport before loading the patient hot (helicopter never shut down – blades still turning) into the helicopter, and transporting him to the hospital. There was nothing particularly strange about the accident itself, but as it turns out, the CEO of my hospital just happened to be caught up in that traffic, and he had a front-row seat to watch us do our job.

The next day, the CEO and my director came down to where we were and asked to see us. After seeing what we did in person, he wanted to come and personally thank us for the ‘effortless, yet life-saving’ work that he had witnessed. And now, decades later, that gesture still sticks with me. Just a simple act of recognition, especially coming from the leaders at the head of a hospital, can make a world of difference for an exhausted nurse.

And when we’re talking about our country’s nurses this year, “exhausted” is an understatement. As we mark Nurses Week amid the hopeful winding down of the worst international health crisis in memory, nurse and frontline staff recognition should be at the top of mind of every healthcare executive – not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because happy and engaged nurses reduce turnover and provide objectively better care.

So what can hospital leaders do about it? There are a few key tactics that are important not only during Nurses Week, but year-round:

  • Give time – and space – for self care. Nurses are often the last to take time to care for themselves. Reinforce that from the top to the bottom of your organization, staff members should take the time and resources they need to take care of their physical and mental needs. Allow them to take their well-deserved paid time off so they can recharge, and create an environment in which asking for help and asking for resources is not seen as a sign of weakness, but rather one of strength.
  • Give nurses the opportunity to lift each other up. By giving your nursing staff the ability to nominate each other for recognition – either for going above and beyond, for stepping in and helping whenever needed, or simply for being a positive presence in the unit – you foster a culture that celebrates achievement. Integrate the nomination process directly into ongoing staff rounding processes, making nominations quick and easy. And don’t forget how much recognition and encouragement from the ‘C Suite’ means to the staff.
  • Amplify good patient stories. When you receive positive feedback from a patient about the treatment they received from a member of your nursing staff, share it publicly with your entire staff. Talk about the interventions used, and how caregivers interacted with patients in a positive manner. This too can be integrated directly into patient rounding processes – build opportunities for recognition directly into rounding scripts.

Of course, Nurses Week this year will be marked by special events, meals, public displays of appreciation, nursing excellence awards, and more. But nurse recognition needs to be about so much more than a moment in time – it needs to go beyond a simple “thanks” or “good job.” When recognition is adopted as a cultural value, and when it’s codified into policies and processes, it becomes self-perpetuating and infectious, in the best sense of the word.