Renne Thompson

A manager of a float pool told me that when her nurses were assigned to one particular medical surgical unit, they would NEVER get a lunch break, the staff would hide the good equipment leaving her nurses with the broken ones, and they would change the code on the staff bathroom door, forcing the float nurse to use the public bathroom (two hallways down from the unit)! ” Check out how Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami Florida is stepping up to create a culture of caring by rolling out the red carpet within their patient care units: I’ve been working with the nursing leadership and employees at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital over the last year. If you’d like to find out how you can bring the Red Carpet Treatment to YOUR organization, click here to get instant access to a 10-minute training about the 4 most common disruptions and find out how you can bring the Culture of Caring to your organization. To cultivate a culture where float staff are treated professionally, with respect, and with a sense of appreciation for their help, adopt the Rolling Out the Red Carpet Initiative as part of a Healthy Workforce! !

Many employees blame their leaders for their stressful work environment and think their leaders COULD do more to make it better but don’t for many different reasons. Employees need to understand what it’s like to be a leader who is responsible for patients and employees 24/7. They know you’re busy, but don’t tell them to fix it, and then sit back and complain that they didn’t fix it the way you wanted, and then complain that they can’t help because they’re still too busy. The disconnect between employees and leaders doesn’t have to exist if we each gained a healthy dose of perspective and took the time to understand what it’s like to walk in each other’s shoes.

Our mission is to create healthy workforce’s within healthcare organizations by eliminating bullying and incivility and creating cultures of professionalism, caring, and respectful communication. As we’ve consulted with healthcare executives to strengthen their organizations through appropriate policies and processes, equip their front line leaders through skill development, and empower their employees through nurse-driven caring culture initiatives, the topic of workplace violence ALWAYS comes up. This type of violence ranges from verbal abuse to unfair treatment and can occur between doctor to nurse, nurse to nurse, etc. The following are just a few of the many examples of how to become more aware: Recognize that although violence can occur anywhere at any time, certain areas have higher potential, such as in the Emergency room where stress and emotions combined with long waiting times cause people to lash out, in many cases at those trying to help them.

Nurses know that it’s humanly impossible to care for patients in today’s complex world alone. I told my co-workers to give me a minute to take care of my patient in pain, however, as soon as I treated my patient, I saw that they were already gowned and gloved, in my patient’s room, taking care of her. They make decisions based on what’s best for them, then patients, and maybe, if there’s time leftover – the team. Kudos to April (nurse) and Elissa (student nurse) for understanding that the only way nurses can provide high quality compassionate care to patients is if we treat our co-workers like wolves treat theirs.