Exploring the Impact of Employee Engagement and Patient Safety

Factors influencing the use of big data within healthcare services: a systematic review

Background: The emergence of big data holds the promise of aiding healthcare providers by identifying patterns and converting vast quantities of data into actionable insights facilitating the provision of precision medicine and decision-making. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing use of big data within healthcare services to facilitate their use. Method: A systematic review was conducted in February 2024, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Database searches for articles published between 01 January 2020 and 18 February 2024 and included PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest and Cochrane Library. The Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance ( AACODS) checklist was used to evaluate the quality of the included articles. Subsequently, a thematic analysis was conducted on the findings of the review, using the Boyatzis approach. Results: A final selection of 46 studies were included in this systematic review. A significant proportion of these studies demonstrated acceptable quality, and the level of bias was deemed satisfactory. Thematic analysis identified seven major themes that influenced the use of big data in healthcare services. These themes were grouped into four primary categories: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Factors associated with "effort expectancy" were the most highly cited in the included studies (67%), while those related to "social influence" received the fewest citations (15%). Conclusion: This study underscored the critical role of "effort expectancy" factors, particularly those under the theme of "data complexity and management," in the process of using big data in healthcare services. Implications: Results of this study provide groundwork for future research to explore facilitators and barriers to using big data in health care, particularly in relation to data complexity and the efficient and effective management of big data, with significant implications for healthcare administrators and policymakers.

Quality improvement in the era of boarding and burnout: A postpandemic blueprint

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented challenges to healthcare quality in the emergency department, including directly impacting quality metrics and worsening barriers to the quality improvement process such as burnout, staff turnover, and boarding. We aimed to develop a blueprint for postpandemic quality improvement to address these specific barriers, focused on prioritizing frontline staff engagement from idea generation to implementation and assessment. Drawing from teamwork literature, we constructed a process that emphasized egalitarian conversations, psychological safety, and creating an environment where staff could feel heard at every step of the process. We applied this blueprint to improving rates of patients who leave without being seen and achieved a four percentage point reduction (9% vs. 5%, p < 0.001), with high rates of staff satisfaction with the process. We conclude that while postpandemic quality improvement presents significant challenges, we can rise to meet those challenges by adapting existing quality improvement processes to increase frontline staff engagement.

Actualizing Radical Loving Leadership in Real World Health Care

With Chapman's Radical Loving Care as a framework, this article shares practical wisdom and habits that occur daily in a busy community hospital to help all nurse leaders to develop a holistic view to shape their vision and embed radical loving care in their connections. The application of Chapman's concepts to the mentoring of others is viewed as a form of love and helps to strengthen not only the mentee, but the entire system of nurses caring for each other. Radical loving care is seen as a far reaching, progressive and humanistic strategy to show a deep, abiding kindness and caring to other human beings in the world of health care.

The Association of Transformational Leadership on Safety Practices Among Nurses: The Mediating Role of Patient Safety Culture

Background

To ensure best possible patient outcomes, patient safety is a major component of healthcare delivery system that needs to be prioritized. Safety practices among nurses are essential to maintain patient safety, especially the practices of medication administration, handover, patient falls and unplanned extubations prevention.

Purpose

To investigate the mediating effect of patient safety culture between the relationship of transformational leadership and safety practices among nurses.

Methods

The data in this cross-sectional study were gathered from a survey targeted clinical nurses using a random sampling technique. The study was conducted in a medical city in Saudi Arabia, and two hundred nurses were surveyed. The Multifactor Leadership, Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, and Nursing Safety Practice questionnaires were used in the study.

Results

The results revealed significant positive associations between transformational leadership, patient safety culture, and nursing safety practices. Moreover, patient safety culture mediates the association between transformational leadership and safety practices among nurses.

Conclusion

Enhancing transformational leadership capabilities among nurse managers should be considered in order to improve nursing safety practices. Additionally, patient safety culture should be measured and improved periodically to ensure better nursing safety practices.

How Can Organizations Support a Culture of Care?

Providing care is central to the operations of health care organizations. This article discusses how organizations can create a culture of care. It also identifies key elements that health care organizations can implement to build a culture that nurtures both patients and employees. Additionally, the article examines the benefits of implementing practices that demonstrate compassion toward both employees and patients. This article explores the significance of creating and supporting a culture of care for both patients and employees in health care organizations. Finally, the article identifies prevalent practices that contribute to a culture of care.

The engagement chasm: Time for competency-based training in employee engagement for healthcare and beyond

BACKGROUND

Employee disengagement in healthcare and business is currently at unexceptionally high levels worldwide. Disengagement negatively impacts productivity, profitability, efficiency (waste reduction), innovation, quality, customer satisfaction and experience, staff well-being, safety, mortality, staff attendance, and turnover. Despite its serious detrimental impacts, no dedicated competency-based training curriculum exists for engagement as a competency.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a competency-based educational curriculum for an Engagement Competency.

METHODS

A curricular roadmap comprising the following steps was observed 1. Identifying the desired outcomes needed of trainees. These must help fulfill all the Q12 Gallup survey engagement items. 2. Explicitly defining the required Competencies, Entrustable Professional Activities, and Milestones, 3. Selecting the educational activities, and instructional methods, 4. Selecting the tools to assess progress along the milestones, and finally, 5. Designing an evaluation system to assess the outcomes of the engagement competency program.

RESULTS

We developed an Engagement Competency Framework with 7 Entrustable Professional activities "rationally and practically" arranged. These are: Envision E1, Embrace E2, Empower E3, Enlighten E4, Empathize E5, Energize E6, and Evaluate E7 (the 7Es).

CONCLUSION

The unfortunate global issue of disengagement in healthcare and in the business arena may be practically tackled by introducing Engagement Competency and training. It should be compulsory for all in the "leadership role". Such training may lead to remarkable performance improvement and a happier, more prosperous, and safer world.

Counterintuitive consequences of COVID-19 on healthcare workers: A meta-analysis of the relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction

Background

Studies conducted in the health sector have determined a positive relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement. However, this paper reveals that this relationship turns into a negative or non-significant relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the reasons for inconsistency in research findings in this critical period through a meta-analysis.

Methods

This study was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines and PICO framework. Online databases including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and additional records from other databases were searched without any time limitation, and all studies published in English that reported the correlation between work engagement and job satisfaction were included in the analysis. In total, 36 individual correlation coefficients were synthesized. R statistical language was used to analyze the data.

Result

A total of 36 studies with a sample size of 16,087 were synthesized. The overall effect size was found as r = 0.57 (95% CI [0.50-0.64]). While the moderating effect of national culture was not statistically significant, presence of COVID-19 as the significant moderator explained 37.08% of effect size heterogeneity. Such that the presence of COVID-19 has transformed the positive relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction into a negative but statistically non-significant relationship.

Conclusion

This study empirically challenges the existing assumptions about the positive link between work engagement and job satisfaction. The results of the research can be a guide for managers and policymakers. Specifically, based on these results, different mechanisms can be put in place to support work engagement and, in turn, job satisfaction in the COVID-19 process.