The primary purpose of this study is to document the psychometric properties of the revised Nursing Work Index (NWI-R) in the context of a large Canadian sample of registered nurses. A self-administered survey containing the NWI-R was completed by 17,965 registered nurses working in 415 hospitals in three Canadian provinces. Using exploratory principal components analysis, with a forced one-factor solution, the practice environment index was obtained. In addition, key assumptions were tested from previous work about the rationale for the aggregation of NWI-R responses. In the Canadian context the one-factor solution provides a parsimonious index of the practice environment of registered nurses working in acute care hospitals. Further work is needed to determine the predictive capability of this index and its relevance to cross-national organizational contexts.

Measuring the hospital practice environment: a Canadian context.

Aim. This paper reports a critical review of nursing organizational culture research studies with the objectives of: (1) reviewing theoretical and methodological characteristics of the studies and (2) drawing inferences specific to the state of knowledge in this field.

Background.  Organizational culture is regarded as significant in influencing research use in clinical practice yet it is not understood how culture shapes practitioners’ behaviours. Only one review of this empirical literature in nursing has been completed.

Method.  Using selected computerized databases, published nursing research studies in English that examine organizational culture were accessed. Organizational culture studies were categorized using Hatch's three perspectives on organizational culture: (1) modern, (2) symbolic-interpretive and (3) postmodern. The review was conducted in 2005.

Results.  Twenty-nine studies were in the final data set. Results pointed to variations in cultural definitions and incorporation of organizational sciences theory. In classifying the studies, modern perspectives dominated (n = 22), symbolic-interpretive approaches were an emerging group (n = 6) and one study was unclassifiable. Our results expand current cultural instrument reviews by pinpointing tools that have been previously overlooked and by identifying ongoing theoretical and methodological challenges for researchers.

Conclusion.  An exclusive reliance on modernistic approaches in organizational culture research cannot yield a complete understanding of the phenomenon. Rather, the field could benefit from a variety of cultural approaches. In a similar vein, researchers need to be mindful of the terminology and the unit of analysis they use in their research, as these are the two largest research challenges.

https://www.sjsu.edu/people/phyllis.connolly/courses/c17/s1/Scottlitrevorgcul22930511.pdf

Mapping the organizational culture research in nursing: a literature review.

Aims and background This paper identifies and classifies indicators for competent nursing practice and validates these indicators in a variety of settings. Descriptive data to address competent practice in a variety of settings were collected from staff nurses, head nurses and nursing directors in an acute 1000-bed university hospital in Finland.

Method The data obtained from 25 expert groups were analysed to identify a clinical set of indicators for competent nursing practice from the data. The relevance of this set of indicators in a variety of clinical settings was further validated with a second sample of expert nurses (n = 26). Thereafter, data were analysed to identify generic competencies that were applicable to all clinical working environments.

Results Twenty-three generic indicators of competent nursing practice were identified in a variety of settings. The findings suggest that these competence indicators are meaningful to nurses with various backgrounds and practice settings.

Conclusions Collaboration and coordination, as well as the holistic management of the situation, are highly recognized as meaningful characteristics of competent nursing practice.

Indicators for competent nursing practice

The purpose of this article is to report the outcomes of a nurse internship program initiated at a U.S. Navy hospital designed to increase new graduate nurses' clinical competence, confidence, and comfort. Using a quasi-experimental design, the experimental group scored significantly higher on organizational core competencies than the control group. These nurses were more comfortable with their leadership and management roles following the intervention. Organizations may wish to consider a nursing internship program as a means of improving the work environment.

Nurse internship pathway to clinical comfort, confidence, and competency.

atisfaction with hospital care is a topic of much interest, and many hospitals use some instrument to measure patients’ satisfaction. Public reporting of measures of patients’ perspectives of care are now available on the Internet. Press Ganey Associates, Inc, a leading vendor of tools to measure patients’ satisfaction, includes the item “skill of the nurses” on a questionnaire mailed to patients after discharge from the hospital. Although much information is available on patients’ satisfaction and perceptions of quality of care, and some information is available on patients’ perceptions of physicians’ skills, little information Patients’ Perceptions of Nurses’ Skill

del Bueno Dj

Papers

Organizational culture: how important is it?

Ready, willing, able? Staff competence in workplace redesign.

Reflections on retention, recognition, and rewards.

Nurse managed care: one approach.

A Clinical Ladder? Maybe!.