Engaging the Nursing Workforce: A Hospital's Approach to Linking Best Practices with Positive Outcomes

The nursing leadership team at Northwest Texas Healthcare System (NWTHS), a 489-bed, for-profit organization, introduced a comprehensive process to engage the nursing workforce in response to a 2-year period of flat scores during the 2006–2007 annual Gallup Employee Engagement survey. In addition, our nursing engagement scores were lower than all other departmental scores for the facility, the parent corporation's scores, and comparable institutions that use the Gallup survey. As a result of this trend, we implemented a variety of strategies to improve the engagement of the nursing workforce. The process includes using the facility's employee opinion survey to isolate the problems, building initiatives at the unit and executive level, and holding the process together through individual manager accountability.