Objective
The aims of this study were to implement a Peer Support Network (PSN) pilot project including education/training, peer support, and resiliency training and to explore how interventions impact compassion satisfaction (CS) and compassion fatigue (CF) in a community hospital.
Background
CF has been reported to negatively affect nurse retention. The PSN provides a 3-tiered team approach to enhance CS and support nurses experiencing CF symptoms.
Methods
Twenty nurses participated in PSN training and completed preimplementation and 6-week postimplementation surveys: Professional Quality of Life, Compassion Practice Instrument, and self-care resource utilization.
Results
Statistically significant improvements in CS and nonstatistical improvements in CF were found.
Conclusion
Promoting a PSN may increase CS and potentially prevent work-related physical, emotional, social, and intellectual CF sequelae.
This is the sixth in a series of articles from Planetree, an international nonprofit organization founded in 1978 that's "committed to improving medical care from the patient's perspective." For more information, go to www.planetree.org.
Over the past decade, hospitals and health care systems have responded to the call for increased patient engagement and person-centered care. Organizations across the country have developed models and tools to assist in the effort toward patient and family engagement in health care delivery. In addition, current literature and trends suggest that patient satisfaction and quality outcomes are improved when patients and families become partners in their own health care and the delivery of that care. However, to formalize a patient-centric structure and process across a large health care system that is aimed at patient and family engagement can be a daunting activity. Utilizing well-established tools, Catholic Health Initiatives was successful in implementing the structures to deploy the ideas of patients and families in multiple facilities and care settings across 19 states. Nursing leaderships, in partnership with patients and their families within this health care delivery system, were the key contributors to the implementation of formalized patient and family advisory councils in hospitals across the enterprise.
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