Summary
The Nursing profession is one of the most important jobs in the world. The value of services of the nurses depends on the value that the institutions they work for, give them. The paper would examine the benefits of teamwork that lead to success in the nursing industry.
The Research Problem
There is an indication that the nursing career is going through tough times. The number of nurses is slowly dwindling as compared to the growing demand for nursing services. Registered Nurses have been exiting their current positions and professions at an alarming rate. Despite the potential plan to create over 500,000 jobs, the problem seems to escalate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009). There would be the need to have a million new nurses. The main problem is job satisfaction. The main reason for the nurses’ high turnover and intent to leave is the dissatisfaction associated with their job. In the United States, about 13% of the nurses consider leaving their jobs within one year of joining.
Literature Review
There had been previous research that focused on the nurses’ job satisfaction. Some of the discoveries revealed that once the staff was satisfied, the job stress decreased. The research indicated that there was a need for improvement of relationships and collaboration between the nurses and the physician. There was a need for friendships among staff members.
The nurses also needed career advancement in the job place, improved communication with their supervisors, and support from the management. Interestingly, about five of the researchers focused on teamwork. There were excellent reports about the need for teamwork (Kalisch, Curley & Stefanov, 2007). Some of the other causes for dissatisfaction included the excessive workload, not being valued and recognized for their contribution to the industry. Currently, the studies focus on teamwork within inpatient settings and cover a much large sample among the nurses and the Nursing Assistants.
The Framework
During the study, the independent variables included the nurses, the unit characteristics, and teamwork. The dependent variables were the staff satisfaction with current position and occupation. The individual nursing staff characteristics included gender, level of education, experience, and roles, among others. The patient unit characteristics involved the patient environment and the needs. Some of the previous results had shown that staffing levels also affect job satisfaction. Research within the nursing industry and outside has proven that the higher the teamwork, the higher the satisfaction of the job.
The Research Question
The research question covers essential attributes of the nursing career. The two questions clearly outline the current environment and the basic requirements (Kalisch, Lee & Salas, 2010). The first question seeks information on whether the current status is effective to lead to job satisfaction. The second question provides the avenue for the participant to evaluate the need for teamwork for job satisfaction (Kalisch, Weaver & Salas, 2009).
Human Subjects
The research covered Nurses from various institutions. Some of them included the Midwestern hospitals, different patient care units, and a Southern hospital. For the research to be valid, the researchers had to register the Nursing Teamwork Survey. They employed the Likert scaling system. To protect the human subjects they tested it for its psychometric properties. They had to measure its acceptability, validity, and reliability. Its acceptability was above board.
Significance of the Problem to Nursing
The author identifies the significance of the problem to nursing practice as a whole. Due to dissatisfaction, the nursing sector would lose many of the current staff. The new ones who join would also leave in a year (Amos, Hu & Herrick, 2005). The passion for the profession would diminish despite the announcement that it would be the highest employer in the nation. Once people lose interest, there would be lesser and lesser people going for the nursing profession. The results would be that the health sector would experience myriads of problems. The males were fewer than their female counterparts in the study. The male was very dissatisfied because of the nurses’ lower pay and status. Nurses’ turnover normally costs the hospitals about $85,000 per staff member.
Use of Research
The research brings out the issues that need the nursing leadership to address. The research would be very useful in decision-making for clinical practice. It shows that a high level of teamwork and the perceptions of staffing adequacy increases job satisfaction. There are teams that the research has not involved, especially the inpatient units in the acute care hospitals in the world (Kalisch, Lee & Rochman, 2010). It would be very important to improve on the teamwork aspect for such people.
There is also proof that higher teamwork leads to safety. Safety and team effectiveness would help to encourage the nurses to work towards teamwork. It would, therefore, be prudent to start working on how to engage the staff so that there is teamwork. The seven evidence-based strategies would be helpful. They would sustain highly effective and successful teamwork (Amos, Hu & Herrick, 2005).
The best way to do it is to support and build the teams. Coaching is also very important because it ensures that the staff participates in the process. The role manager should help the staff to measure their performance and apply intervention measures when necessary.
References
Amos, M., Hu, J., & Herrick, C. (2005). The Impact of Team Building on Communication and Job Satisfaction of Nursing Staff. Journal for Nurses in Staff Development (JNSD), 21(1), 10-16. Web.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2009). Registered nurses: Occupational outlook handbook. Web.
Kalisch, B., Curley, M., & Stefanov, S. (2007). An Intervention to Enhance Nursing Staff Teamwork and Engagement. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 37(2), 77-84. Web.
Kalisch, B., Lee, H., & Rochman, M. (2010). Nursing staff teamwork and job satisfaction. Journal of Nursing Management, 18(8), 938-947. Web.
Kalisch, B., Lee, H., & Salas, E. (2010). The Development and Testing of the Nursing Teamwork Survey. Nursing Research, 59(1), 42-50. Web.
Kalisch, B., Weaver, S., & Salas, E. (2009). What Does Nursing Teamwork Look Like? A Qualitative Study. Journal Of Nursing Care Quality, 24(4), 298-307. Web.