Moving nursing innovation to prime time through the use of creative partnerships.

Nurses are well-positioned to solve many problems in healthcare through engagement in innovation. Support from healthcare organizations to facilitate creative partnerships may accelerate nurses' ability to innovate and improve job satisfaction. The value of creative partnerships is rooted in the diversity of experiences and skillsets of each project team member. While nurses may be content experts and key stakeholders, they often lack experience with project management, information technology, product development, and other important skills. We describe the use of co-creation approaches in creative partnerships with diverse stakeholders to enhance the ability of nurse-led project teams to build valuable and sustainable products or services.

A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Nurse Manager Decision-Making Associated With RN Hiring.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the practices and self-confidence of nurse manager (NM) decision-making related to evaluating RN hiring needs. BACKGROUND: Evidence-based hiring strategies to sustain workforce stability were identified as a gap in the literature. Locally, inconsistencies in the method that NMs use to determine how many RNs to hire and at what frequency to hire them were observed, posing a threat to strategic workforce planning. METHODS: Using a mixed-methods, qualitative descriptive design, researchers used in-depth interviews and surveys to assess current practices and NM confidence related to evaluating hiring needs. RESULTS: The overarching theme among the 10 participants was false confidence. Subthemes reflected the dissonance in confidence and high variability in the hiring process. NM stress, time spent, and confidence were not correlated with years' experience. CONCLUSIONS: NMs experience stress, spend excessive time, and use varying approaches to evaluate hiring needs. Years of managerial experience are unrelated to practical skills or level of confidence in hiring decision-making.

Evaluation of a proactive hiring model to achieve workforce stability in the intensive care unit.

AIM: The purpose was to evaluate an innovative Prospective Hiring Equation to determine registered nurse hiring needs. BACKGROUND: The American Organization for Nursing Leadership identifies human resource management as a competency for nurse managers, yet calculations to determine when and how many registered nurses to hire are not readily available. METHODS: We implemented an educational intervention to teach nurse mangers the Prospective Hiring Equation. We evaluated the processes (adoption and confidence) and outcomes (vacancy rates) using a pre-evaluation/postevaluation design in a single cohort of nurse managers (n = 9). We used a statistical process control chart to depict mean differences in vacancy rate at baseline and 6-month postimplementation. RESULTS: Participants (n = 9) were on average 43 years' old, female, and had 2.94 (SD = 2.66) years' of nurse manager experience. Following implementation of the intervention, the combined vacancy rates of the intensive care units improved by 11.8% (SD = 7), and use of agency nurses decreased by 42.5% (premedian = 7.2, interquartile ratio = 3.6, 10.8; postmedian = 1.8, interquartile ratio 0.9, 8.55). CONCLUSIONS: The Prospective Hiring Equation may be a useful tool to improve nurse managers human resource management competencies. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The Prospective Hiring Equation may help nurse managers improve accuracy when evaluating hiring needs.