Nursing Engagement Culture: Models of Excellence
NAQ 34:1, Creating a Culture of Nursing Engagement, had such voluminous response with quality manuscripts that issue editor Patricia S. Yoder-Wise and I decided to offer a second volume. This first issue may be found online at http://naqjournal.com, if you have not received the hard copy. It is interesting to note that so much interest in this subject means that the leadership of nursing practice environments is very committed to creating this culture of nursing engagement, sharing the findings of how nursing communities are affected, and finding out what significance this movement has for the future of healthcare systems.
In reflecting on the word "engagement," one usually thinks of a relationship beginning, between a couple who have decided to make a lifetime pledge to each other. In the profession of nursing, some nurses have made a lifetime commitment as they were "engaged" in the early years of nursing education, when they repeated the "Nightingale Pledge," during their "capping" ceremony. As nursing education and practice have changed dramatically through the years, nursing leaders have demonstrated significant improvements in the practice environments that are truly engaging nurses into a high level of nursing practice excellence.
Patricia S. Yoder-Wise, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, ANEF, FAAN, who teaches in the graduate programs at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Texas Woman's University in Houston, is the issue editor for this second volume, addressing cultures of nursing engagement and models of excellence. She has recently been re-elected as Treasurer of the American Academy of Nursing and also serves as President of the Council on Graduate Education for Administration in Nursing. She exemplifies excellence in all her leadership endeavors that have impacted nursing practice environments and created unique cultures of nursing engagement.
The pursuit of excellence, in any arena, is a daunting undertaking and can be considered competitive, frequently requiring struggles and rivalry, as we are keenly aware of, in anticipating the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. Is creating professional practice environments that promote nursing excellence and truly engage the workforce of nurses an equally daunting undertaking? Are there struggles and competition and even opposition to advancing nursing practice? How do nurse leaders develop a culture of nursing engagement? Change in practice environments requires multiple negotiations and change strategies. There is no one best way to accomplish change, but we realize that nothing is done so well that someone will not find fault with the undertaking. As Machiavelli has said, "Nothing is more difficult than to initiate a new order of things."
While nursing continues on its pathway to a higher level of professionalism throughout the world, the international search for excellence through Magnet recognition has been achieved in Beirut, Lebanon. Gladys Mouro, BSN, MSN, Assistant Hospital Director for Patient Care Services and Director of Nursing, American University of Beirut Medical Center, presented "The Journey to Excellence Against All Odds" at the International Nursing Symposium, October 27-28, 2009, Building Connections for Global Nursing, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She described the methods, obstacles faced, including wars, and the initiatives taken to become a Magnet hospital in the Middle East.
Nurse leaders find themselves confronting challenges that bring about innovation and transition from organizational vision to transformation in an optimistic futuristic model. New partnerships of innovation are formed with nurses, physicians, business leaders, and healthcare administrators, as well as patient stakeholders. Complex policy changes and unique communication modalities afford the creative leader with multiple sources of knowledge management. Education for innovation stems from creativity in approaching whatever new forms of activities seem to be a solution for a challenge in any environment. Creativity adds to a body of knowledge in any field and enhances the growth of an individual as well as an organization or society at large. Bold thinkers in nursing are always looking ahead to create new pathways of learning and doing, and strive to create an environment that empowers and engages the entire workplace.
Learning to be an innovative leader in developing new models of care transcends all ages, which evolve from the industrial age to the high-level information age of tomorrow. Without the dimension of informatics, a nurse leader may not be able to blend research and practice in a transformational model, where new ways of providing care and evidence-based practice are paving the path to improved care systems. Innovation stretches our thinking to bring together seemingly unrelated ideas and relationships and enables a "can't do it" to become a "do-it."
Are you a do-it nurse leader? You will make mistakes, but you will engage your nursing world to the utmost. Do-it!!
Barbara J. Brown, EdD, RN, CNAA, FNAP, FAAN
Editor-in-Chief, Nursing Administration Quarterly