Recruitment and retention: Mirror, mirror: What is the public face of nursing at your hospital?
Does your hospital present nurses as valuable members of the health care team and give the local community the impression that it holds nurses in high esteem? Too often nurses are overlooked for public recognition except during nurses week. Even then, nursing innovation, progress and achievement are rarely put forth. Most hospital public relations departments spend their time exclusively promoting physicians and the professional services they provide without also promoting the 24/7 quality nursing care that patients need to thrive and survive and make that service a success.
Indeed the ANCC has identified the importance to "make visible the contributions of nurses" and show that "the community at large recognize[s] the value of nursing in the organization" as necessary requirements of becoming and remaining a Magnet certified hospital (Chapter 2, section II).
The Truth About Nursing can help you examine your hospital's public nursing image by performing a thorough analysis of the myriad ways a hospital communicates with the public. We can help you identify the strong and weak points in your hospital's opportunities to publicize nursing, from the website to health records software, from artwork to parking spaces, from the language used to the makeup of committees. We can meet with the decision-makers to gather information about how the public face, or lack of, came to be and work with them to strategize about how to shine a light on its most valuable resource--its nurses. After all, hospitals exist primarily to provide nursing services.
After our examination scanning over 20 different sources of potential misinformation or missed opportunities to promote nursing, we will create a detailed written report of our findings. With our report in hand, at your discretion we can meet with the decision-makers who control parts of the nursing image and present them with strategies to better bring to light the incredible value of nursing at your hospital.
This information and attain visible recognition for nursing to the community at large, and to provide evidence that the community "recognize[s] the value of nursing in the organization." In Chapter 2, section II of the "Magnet Model Components and Sources of Evidence", the ANCC asks for a description and demonstration of your facility's commitment to professional development by providing sources of evidence that you are the that the community at large recognize the value of nursing
Recognition of Nursing Describe and demonstrate
S14 The structure(s) and process(es) the organization uses to recognize and make visible the contributions of nurses.
SE15 That the nursing community and the community at large (e.g. local, stats, national, international) recognize the value of nursing in the organization. )
What are message does your hospital send about the value it places on nursing? That nurses are respected health professionals or are they disregarded and undervalued in the messages the hospital sends? We can analyze your situation on the ground, prepare a detailed and thorough report on the about the intended and unintended messages that your hsopital sends about nursing. Messages that reach into the public's subconscious thinking that forms so much of the value placed on nursing. WIth our analysis and report you can present it to your hospital's executives to begin paving the road toward a more robust and valued image of nursing.
Yet in our search of hospital websites, we have found nearly none that tout nursing excellence on its main pages or pages directed at patients and visitors. Magnet status seems to be used solely as a nurse recruitment tool. We have not yet seen it used as a marketing tool for patients, which is remarkable since research shows the care at Magnet hospitals is superior enough to lead to lower patient mortality rates.
The Truth About Nursing can come to your facility to do an assessment of your institution's public image and help you strengthen it to meet Magnet requirements. We will look at everything from your website, signage, names, forms, usage of terms and concepts that project an image of nursing as strong and autonomous and or a second class job for subservient women who keep their heads down and mouths closed?
Our founder and executive director Sandy Summers has led the way transforming nursing's image. She can shed light on words and images that send messages about nursing that may be difficult to see. To fully assess your insitution, Sandy will spend a couple days with you and meet with the public relations department to find ways to present nursing to the community to attain Magnet standards. and promote it better (link Mass General piece "As I lay dying"). She can meet with webiste developers to improve the way nursing is depicted on your website and even work with them on an ongoing basis. She can identify areas that send messages about nursing from signage, to forms to the art on the walls. And then she will submit to you a full report that you will be able to use to help you facilitate change going forward.
Make sure that your institution’s website conveys to the public the key role nurses play in patient care. To develop a website, ask media relations professionals for help. You might profile each nursing service and individual nurses.
We can help facilitate website transitions that foster nurses taking a more active role in building the website and public presence.
Many people look for general health information on the Internet. Nurses can create websites to educate their patients or communities about health, and in doing so, illustrate nursing expertise. In today’s managed care environment, many patients get home after a hospital visit with little idea how to manage their conditions. They may not understand how to use their crutches, monitor their wounds, test their blood sugar levels, exercise, or avoid foods that put them at risk. Even when hospital nurses manage to give patients this information, patients may forget or simply be overwhelmed. The Internet can be a great way to fill this need and perhaps prevent future hospitalizations. If you do set up an informational website, consider becoming certified by Health on the Net Foundation, an international non-governmental organization that guides consumers to reliable health websites.
Parking spaces
Advertisements, radio, television, print
Artwork
Sandy Summers will explore strategies to help nurses reach out to the media, including through the Truth About Nursing's web site and her book Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk, in order to increase the value placed on nursing to make patients safer, and move the image of nursing toward that of a profession that's second to none.
Contact Sandy by email ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org
Office phone 410-323-1100
Cell 443-253-3738
Educate the world that nurses save lives!
