The Organizational Context of Nursing Practice

This book explores the various features of work environments that affect nurses' experiences of their work, their interactions with co-workers and patients, and ultimately health care quality and patient outcomes. Using a broad and comprehensive approach, the authors identify the most extensively researched and best-understood concepts in the field and presents a critical and up-to-date review of the evidence regarding causes and effects of work environment features. It then presents evidence regarding organizational interventions aimed at broad ranges of clinical practices and outcomes, such as team-based interventions and management practices to improve practice climate. The ideas, approaches, and evidence are presented by a team of researchers and experienced practitioner/leaders; taken together, they form a state-of-the-science toolkit. Unique features of this book include a systematic presentation of best practices in nursing and healthcare leadership, along with the conceptual grounding and empirical support for these approaches, and extensive demonstrations of how these practices, many of which originated in North America, apply to European contexts.

Peter Van Bogaert is a registered nurse and has a bachelor degree in nursing sciences (St Vincentius, School of Nursing, Antwerp, 1983), master degree in sciences (University Ghent, 1989) and doctoral degree in medical sciences (University of Antwerp, 2009). He has more than 30 year experience in acute health care (Antwerp University Hospital) as a nurse (1983-1990), a nurse manager (1990-200), a director of nursing (2000-2012) and a researcher (since 2012), respectively. He is chair of the Department of Midwifery and Nursing Sciences since October 1, 2010. As chairman of the research group Centre for Research and Innovation in Care (CRIC), he is responsible for the development and evaluation of regional, national and international scientific collaboration. He supervised various courses in the master programme Nursing and Midwifery Sciences (management and innovation 20 ECTS, trans-mural care delivery 5 ECTS, quality of care and patient safety 5 ECTS). In addition, he is a member of the Belgian Board of Quality of Nursing Care (chair of the committee Nursing Quality Indicator Development), member of the Nursing Quality Indicators for Reporting and Evaluation (NQuire) International Advisory Committee Registered Nurses' Associations Ontario Canada.Peter Van Bogaert research topics are nurse practice environments and psychosocial environments of healthcare workers, implementation of improvement initiatives and quality and patient safety (e.g. primary care, residential aged care, acute hospital care and psychiatric inpatient care) and nurse managers' role in acute healthcare settings. He published 54 periodical articles (28 Web of Science A1 peer review articles) and is supervisor of 6 doctoral projects (one completed).
Sean Clarke RN, PhD, FAAN is currently Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA. Prior to this he held endowed research chairs at the University of Toronto and McGill University (where he also led an initiative to strengthen ties between the Ingram School of Nursing and the McGill's teaching hospital network) and comanaged multidisciplinary health services research groups at the Universities of Toronto and Pennsylvania.  In a career of almost two decades as a nursing management and health services researcher specializing in quality and safety issues in hospitals, nursing workforce issues, comparative health systems, and professional issues in nursing, he has authored or co-authored over 140 journal articles and over two dozen book chapters.  He also taught undergraduate and graduate courses in nursing and related disciplines in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia, and collaborated on research projects and contributed to the training of research fellows around the world and currently holds honorary appointments at the Université de Montréal and the University of Hong Kong.   

ForewordPart I: Concepts and Evidence1. Introduction2. Concepts: Organization of Nursing Work and the Psychosocial Experience of Nurses3. Organizational Predictors and Determinants of Nurses- Reported Outcomes: Evidence from a 10-Year Program of ResearchPart II: Large-Scale Quality Improvement Projects and Team-Based Interventions4. Transformation to an Excellent Nursing Organization: A Chief Nursing Officer-s Vision and Experience5. Productive Ward: Releasing Time to Care- (A Ward-Based QI Intervention)6. Embedding Compassionate Care: A Leadership Programme in the National Health Service in Scotland7. Learning and Innovation in Health-Care-Based Teams: The Relationships Between Learning, Innovative Behavior at Work, and Implementation of Innovative Practices in Hospitals8. Project Management and PDSA-Based Projects9. Reporting and Learning Systems for Patient Safety10. Team Resource Management and Quality of Care11. Standardizing Care Processes Using Evidence-Based Strategies: Implementation of a Rapid Response System in Belgian Hospitals12. Interprofessional Collaboration and Communication13. Stress Resistance StrategiesPart III: Perspectives14. Future Steps in Practice and Research 15. General Conclusion