NUR 630 Week 2: Health Care Culture

NUR 630 Week 2: Health Care Culture

Assessment Description

The purpose of this assignment is to discuss health care culture and describe how CWV can be used to improve ethical practices.

In a 1,000-1,250-word essay, discuss the important factors associated with health care culture. Include the following in your essay:

1. A definition of health care culture, including culture of excellence and safety.
2. Two or three examples of principles for building a culture of excellence and safety.
3. An explanation of the role of various stakeholders in improving health care culture.
4. An explanation of how Christian worldview (CWV) principles might be used by health care organizations to improve ethical practices, whether the organizations are Christian or not.
5. Two or three examples of how the integration of faith learning and work at GCU can be implemented by individuals to improve health care culture.

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Sample Research: Health Care Culture

Regardless of their sizes, missions, and values, health care organizations should be characterized by high-quality services, safe environments, and ethical and profession

al staff. Embracing change is another important element of the evolving practice. Like other workplaces, health care organizations should have cultures that demonstrate their beliefs and values. Excellence and safety should be dominant principles. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important factors associated with health care culture.

Defining Health Care Culture, Excellence, and Safety

Generally, cultures represent customs, ideas, and social practices that uniquely differentiate a group of people from others. The ideas and everyday behaviors are revered and maintained through cultural education and policies, among other practices. From a health dimension, health care culture denotes the values, beliefs, and practices related to patient care. According to Chambers (2021), a culture of care implies creating an environment that values people, treats them right, and looks forward to standing out in the competitive market. Such a culture prioritizes patient needs since the organization’s goals cannot be achieved without meeting patient demands. Leaders and employees collaborate, and the entire staff cares about the organization’s purpose.

Excellence and safety are two dominant principles of a health care culture. A culture of excellence is characterized by working together to build and sustain continuous improvement (Toussaint, 2018). To achieve excellence, leaders condemn underperformance, and all staff members are inspired by the organization’s shared purpose, which serves as the driving force in everyday activities. The other defining element is pursuing measurable improvements in care quality to ensure that patients are served satisfactorily. On the other hand, a culture of safety includes values, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors that support safe conduct in health organizations (Khoshakhlagh et al., 2019). Workplace, employee, and patient safety and well-being are prioritized, and events that harm safety are prevented. For instance, the organization invests in nurses’ mental and physical well-being to ensure that they are not overwhelmed and neglect patients.

Principles for Building a Culture of Excellence and Safety

Health care organizations committed to building a culture of excellence and safety embody several principles reflected in routine practice. The first principle dominating the evolving practice is evidence-based practice (EBP). Chien (2019) defined EBP as integrating scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values and preferences to enhance patient outcomes. EBP helps health care organizations to promote care quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. The new knowledge generated through EBP guides health care organizations in quality improvement and informed decision-making. As a result, there is a progressive improvement in care quality and safety as health care facilities use data-backed solutions and recent, scientific, and innovative interventions to solve practice problems.

The other principle for building a culture of excellence and safety is employee engagement. According to Padgett et al. (2019), employee engagement denotes how employees are mentally and connected to the organization and everyday responsibilities. Organizations that value employee engagement include employees in critical decision-making processes, value their feedback, and respond to their concerns. Padgett et al. (2019) found employee engagement instrumental in organizational success since it is a key driver of job satisfaction and employee morale. Satisfied and motivated nursing staff members are passionate about their roles. Such nurses are also mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to address patient needs. Above all, they are highly productive and less vulnerable to problems that hamper patient care and safety, such as workplace incivility, stress, or burnout.

Health care organizations committed to building a culture of excellence and safety embrace change. In the current fast-paced practice, many practices, behaviors, tools, and systems become outdated as time advances. They trigger a proportional decline in care quality as they progressively lose relevance. Among many features, health care organizations striving to optimize excellence and safety embrace change to drive progressive growth. They invest in present technologies and prioritize science and innovations through informatics. Currently, mobile health technology is being used to provide mental health support to COVID-19 patients and improve hygiene in health care settings (Iyengar et al., 2020). Such adaptation is part of the strategies used to promote patient care by minimizing physical contact and facilitating remote care.

Role of Stakeholders in Improving Health Care Culture

Stakeholders play a dominant role in facilitating organizational change, resource management decisions, and building networks. External and internal stakeholders can play different roles in improving health care culture. External stakeholders include suppliers, donors, and partners. Their roles include helping the organization adopt modern technologies, engaging in research, and conducting community outreach programs. Through financial and material resources, external stakeholders ensure that organization’s technologies are current and address patient needs adequately. Research is vital in analyzing disease trends, determining the interventions necessary for preventive measures, and providing patient-centered and culturally competent care.

Internal stakeholders include the organization’s management, nurse leaders, the health care staff, and support staff. The organization’s management ensures that the organization’s policies, strategic decisions, and staff focus on providing optimal care. The management also ensures that the organization has adequate staff and support programs to keep the staff motivated and physically and mentally healthy. A satisfied and motivated staff is less vulnerable to burnout, and turnover chances are minimal (Dall’Ora et al., 2020). Nurse leaders guide nurses in working as teams and coordinating care. They also train nurses on diversity and culture and other training necessary for improving nurses’ skills. The health care staff interacts with patients daily. Through everyday interactions, nurses identify patient needs and barriers to care. They collaborate with the management and nurse leaders to develop evidence-based interventions to address such barriers.

Applying Christian Worldview (CWV) Principles

Christianity embraces many principles that health care organizations can use to improve ethical practices. They include caring for others, love, justice, and equality. Health care organizations guided by CWV principles recognize the need for patient protection and ensure that they are free from harm. Preventing harm is the central tenet of the non-maleficence principle of health care ethics (Haddad & Geinger, 2018). CWV principles can also be used as the reference for equality in health care delivery. One way of promoting equality is ensuring that there are available resources to address patient needs and that such resources are distributed fairly. Christianity also recommends self-sacrifice to help people in distress. Patients are distressed people, and health care professionals should do everything possible to heal and protect them from diseases.

 

Integrating Faith, Learning, and Work at GCU

Integrating faith, learning, and work represents blending the knowledge of God and the universe to create a world better for human beings. It is a practice that goes beyond nurturing the institutional integrity to apply the knowledge gained in the larger society practically. As a result, implementing the integration of faith, learning, and work at GCU can help to improve health care culture by striving to create a better world for all. A suitable example of such practices includes preventive health to ensure that populations are safe from diseases. The other relevant example is embracing CWV principles in health care delivery to ensure that health care activities are based on the fear of God, universal care, and other principles for better, equitable, and patient-centered care.

Conclusion

A health care organization’s primary goal is to provide patient care. They should provide safe and welcoming environments for patients to present and express themselves as they seek medication help. As discussed in this paper, a culture of excellence and safety is crucial for all health care organizations. CWV principles can also be applied across all organizations to improve health care culture.

 

References

Chambers, L. (2021). This is how we can create a culture of care through conscious leadership. Psychreg. https://www.psychreg.org/culture-of-care/#:~:text=What%20is%20culture%20of%20care,stand%20out%20in%20the%20market.

Chien, L. Y. (2019). Evidence-based practice and nursing research. The Journal of Nursing Research: JNR, 27(4), e29. https://doi.org/10.1097/jnr.0000000000000346

Dall’Ora, C., Ball, J., Reinius, M., & Griffiths, P. (2020). Burnout in nursing: a theoretical review. Human Resources for Health, 18(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00469-9

Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2018). Nursing ethical considerations. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/

Iyengar, K., Upadhyaya, G. K., Vaishya, R., & Jain, V. (2020). COVID-19 and applications of smartphone technology in the current pandemic. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome, 14(5), 733–737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.05.033

Khoshakhlagh, A. H., Khatooni, E., Akbarzadeh, I., Yazdanirad, S., & Sheidaei, A. (2019). Analysis of affecting factors on patient safety culture in public and private hospitals in Iran. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4863-x

Padgett, J., Cristancho, S., Lingard, L., Cherry, R., & Haji, F. (2019). Engagement: what is it good for? The role of learner engagement in healthcare simulation contexts. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 24(4), 811-825. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-018-9865-7

Toussaint, J. (2018). The principles, behaviors, and systems necessary to build a culture of excellence. hfma. https://www.hfma.org/topics/blog/60395.html