Charity Rowley and Dr. Katreena Merrill, BYU College of Nursing
In 2010, The Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that adverse events during hospitalization contribute to the deaths of 180,000 patients each year! The study at hand was based on these findings and aims to improve the safety in the hospital environment.
The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the charge nurse in relation to patient safety. It describes correlations between charge nurse characteristics and the direct-care nurses’ ability to provide safe and quality patient care. As identified by Flynn, Prufeta and Minghillo-Lipari, the charge nurse plays an important role in promoting safe and quality patient care (2010).
A convenience sample was taken from the Nursing Practice Council of Intermountain Urban South Region. The sample included 28 nurses working on 19 different hospital units in three hospitals. The nurses are predominantly female, and have an average of 18.7 years of work experience. They received a survey in which they rated the amount of influence the charge nurse has on patient safety, reported characteristics of safe charge nurses, and described situations in which charge nurses have influenced patient safety for better or for worse.
The results showed that 86% of nurses agree that the charge nurse has a great influence on their ability to deliver safe patient care. 81% of nurses agree that the charge nurse plays a critical role in ensuring patient safety. The top three qualities reported to describe a safe charge nurse include: educator/communicator, prioritization skills, and years of clinical experience. And finally, the themes that arose from the qualitative portion of the survey indicated that safe charge nurses: provide task assistance, are a resource of knowledge, and are available/a team-player. Themes indicating what makes a charge nurse unsafe include: being unavailable, poor staffing/delegation skills, and is neither approachable nor knowledgeable.
We conclude that charge nurses do indeed play an important role in patient safety. It is necessary that the charge nurse is a good educator, understands how to make safe assignments, and is approachable. When hiring and evaluating the performance of a charge nurse, these characteristics will be valuable indicators of how that charge nurse is influencing safety in his or her hospital unit.
References
- Levinson, D.R., (2010) Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries, Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, November.
- Flynn, J.P., Prufeta, P.A., & Minghillo-Lipari, L. (2010). An evidence based approach to taking charge: One initiative clarifies the role and preparation of charge nurses. American Journal of Nursing. 10(9), 58-63.