Role of Nurses Educator  For Training Students Regarding Nurse Patient Relationships

What is Nursing Patient Engagement

    Engagement
is the way in which people feel connected in a strongly positive manner. The
term can also be defined by types of people and work settings where there is an
ongoing positive feeling Faculty are expected to be committed to engagement in
order to help students attain the goals of learning and be prepared as
professional nurses who work directly with patients and other staff.

    The
Center for Advancing Health (2010, p. 2) defines engagement from the patient
perspective as “actions individuals must take to obtain the greatest
benefit from the health care services available to them.” This definition
can also be applied to engage professional nurses, nurse educators, and student
learners. The Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Healthcare
Professions ( nd ) defines community engagement as “the application of
institutional resources to address and solve challenges facing communities
through collaboration with these communities” (p. 12).

History of Patient Nurse Engagement 

    Several
studies have focused on work engagement in magnet hospitals. nurses who work in
Magnet hospitals are more engaged than those who work in non-Magnet organizations.
Highly engaged nurses are described as more effective than disengaged nurses in
addition, engaged nurses have a good relationship with nursing management, a
supportive work environment, a sense of empowerment, and a good work-life
balance. Furthermore, they participate in decision making and professional
development (Carter & Tourangeau , 2012; Fasoli , 2010) as engaged
practitioners.

    Factors
contributing to the perception of engagement nurses have in the workplace are
workload, control, reward, fairness, community, and value. Positive practice
environments that influence engagement were found to have the following aspects
of an empowering work environment; a shared governance structure: leadership
support: adequate numbers and skill mix of staff. and value autonomy,
professional development, and collegial relationships ( Twigg & McCullough,
2014). 

    Palmer,
Griffin, Reed, and Fitzpatrick (2010) studied a group of acute care nurses and
found that engagement associated positively with self-transcendence. Thus, when
nurses are fully engaged in their personal and professional lives, it can be
concluded that their growth, development, and becoming as a person will be
enhanced. In another study, a significant determinant of feeling engaged was
the perception that one’s work is important (Rivera, Fitzpatrick, & Boyle,
2011) Therefore, the experience of being engaged in one’s work is when one
finds meaning in his or her work

Complexities of Patient Nurse Relationship

    Engagement
is a complex concept that has a variety of meanings from various perspectives.
Reports of literature in nursing and other fields indicate a relationship
between productivity and engagement, such that the more engaged-the more
productive. Practices defined in a document by the American Organizations of
Nurse Executives provide the underpinnings of an environment where nurses
experience self as being engaged to the fullest. The practices are
collaboration, accountability, shared decision making, competent leadership,
qualified nurses, expert practitioners, and recognition of the value of
nursing’s meaningful contribution to practice.

    Recommendations
from the Institute of Medicine’s (10M) The Future of Nursing (2010) have
compelled schools of nursing to redesign undergraduate nursing curricula to
include judgment, inquiry, commitment, and voice (D’Antonio, Brennan, &
Curley, 2013 ) . In their work, Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical
Transformation, Benner. Sutphen , Leonard. and Day (2010) described an urgent
need to restructure nursing curricula so they actively engage learners and
promote clinical reasoning. 

    Engaging students in the classroom and clinical
setting allows students to envision themselves as nurses. Activities that
foster student engagement in interprofessional collaboration and communication
in practice settings help students to develop confidence levels. Strategies to
facilitate student and new graduate nurse engagement in inter-professional
collaboration suggest better patient outcomes ( Plaff , Baxter, Jack, &
Ploeg , 2013; Pollard, 2009)

Faculty Role For Training Nurse Patient Relationship

    Learners,
faculty, direct care nurses, advanced practice nurses, and nurse leaders have
the opportunity and the obligation to work to improve places where nurses work,
with the goal of well-engaged nurses. Although little research has been done in
nursing and health care as compared to some other fields, gaining an increased
understanding of commitment can lead to professional maturity.