CSI Summary
Available only to registered AACN.org users.
Project Topic:
Increasing Value of Staff Through Meaningful Recognition
Hospital, City and State:
Los Angeles General Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
Unit:
5B Surgical Intensive Care Unit
CSI Participants:
- Angelique Ang, BSN, RN, CCRN
- Louie Domingo, BSN, RN
- Angel Escobar, BSN, RN, CCRN, TCRN
- Amy Phung, ADN, RN
Project Goals/Objectives:
- Increase Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool (HWEAT) overall results from 3.65 to 4
- Increase Meaningful Recognition score from 3.38 to 4.15
- Decrease turnover rate from 1.19% to 0.5%
Project Outcomes:
- Increased HWEAT aggregate score results from 3.65 to 4.19
- Increased Meaningful Recognition score from 3.38 to 4.21
- Improved all HWEAT standards
- Decreased sick calls by 23% between January and June 2024
- These outcomes resulted in a positive estimated annual fiscal impact of $220,607.
Project Overview:
Our unit had low staff morale and engagement. During the period of January to October 2023, our unit had 6156 sick calls. Staff voiced communication concerns with management. The CSI team noted that our Meaningful Recognition score was low on our baseline HWEAT assessment. Therefore, the CSI team decided to focus our project on decreasing sick call hours through meaningful recognition.
The CSI team placed several interventions aimed at recognizing staff and involving management to address staff concerns. We created a bulletin board at the entrance of our unit proudly showcasing our employees, their achievements and certifications. The CSI team also developed a schedule of monthly in-services that covered an ICU concept and device, which later sparked the interests of our staff members to create their own PowerPoint slides and present to our peers. The team received a lot of positive feedback for the monthly in-services.
The CSI team also implemented a suggestion box for staff to drop in suggestions that are then reviewed monthly by the CSI team and sent to our unit manager. A monthly email was sent to the staff addressing each concern.
The team also developed a monthly employee recognition called the Golden Bee driven by staff nominations, with a recipient announced at the end of each month. We have nominated a Golden Bee from night shift and day shift every month since initiation of this CSI project.
We also helped facilitate unit needs such as locker assignments, equipment requests and workflow changes. The CSI team implemented recognition, communication and gratitude boards to provide a platform for staff to be recognized and their suggestions to be heard.
As a result of our efforts, we reduced the number of sick calls 23% and increased our Meaningful Recognition score from 3.38 to 4.21.
Permission to Reuse Materials
The materials associated with this AACN Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy project are the property of the participating hospital noted above, not AACN. Requests to use content contained in the CSI team’s summary, presentation or toolkit should be directed to the hospital. We suggest reaching out to the hospital’s Communications, Marketing or Nursing Education department for assistance.
Disclaimer
The AACN CSI Academy program supports change projects based on quality improvement methods. Although CSI teams seek to ensure linkage between their project and clinical/fiscal outcomes, data cannot be solely attributed to the project and are estimations of impact.