Promoting Work Engagement: One Medical Center’s Journey

The ability to effectively engage employees is now recognized as an important business differentiator.1 In health care, it has been shown to impact quality of care, patient satisfaction, and safety.2, 3, 4 and 5 Yet, employee engagement and loyalty can be challenging in our current turbulent health care environment when the focus for most organizations has been on reducing costs, improving quality, and implementing innovative change. Recent nationwide research conducted by the Advisory Board Company indicates that only 32.8% of registered nurses (RNs) are engaged in their work, and 7.4% are actively disengaged.6 Statistically, professional nurses have lower work engagement and higher disengagement rates than other frontline staff in health care agencies. This is troubling because nurses contribute substantially to the patient care experience and are also crucial in efforts to transform health care. The 2010 Institute of Medicine Report on The Future of Nursing recommended that nurses should be prepared to lead change to address the gaps in health. 7 This will not happen if nurses are disengaged in their jobs.