The Buzz at Nursing Conferences about Quality and Healthy Work Environments
“I was struck by the preponderance of sessions dealing specifically with incivility and bullying (in both academia and practice settings).”
Recent back-to-back nursing meetings gave me a lot of food for thought. After attending conferences, I like to find the overall theme—not just from the scheduled topics, but from the posters and the exhibits and the general “buzz” from conversations. Here’s my take on the two meetings I attended this month.
ANA’s 2017 Translating Quality into Practice Conference
This conference started with an opening session focused on quality from a consumer point of view. Keynote speaker Harry Greenspun asserted that today “it’s the patient or family’s responsibility that the right thing happens at the right time by the right person.” Nurses, he said, are the group that needs to engage and empower consumers (who, he said, should only be called patients when they are receiving care) in improving care.
ANA president Pam Cipriano added that “nurses are the ones doing the work on quality—all the projects and quality improvement is being done on the backs of nurses.”
While some sessions focused on specific clinical practices (reducing hospital-acquired infections or falls, for example), many focused on broader aspects of quality improvement—how systems can support QI change and integrate new technology (mobile apps, simulation).
There was also discussion relating to staffing strategies and teams (though the cynic in me feels that much […]