Improving Icu Nurses’ Morale and Motivation

Memorandum

To: Hospital’s Chief Operating Officer

From: Winona Kwok

Date: March 03, 2019

Re: Improving ICU nurses’ morale and motivation

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The purpose of this memorandum is to outline a plan for improving ICU nurses’ morale and motivation.

Executive Summary

ICU nurses expressed their daily issues at ICU working environment, such as lack of recognition, communicable diseases and violence in the workplace, consumerism, understaffed, scarcity of team spirit, inequity and poor job outcome. The key issue is that ICU nurses are lack of morale and motivation. To address the issue, it is vital to improve ICU nurses’ esteem and recognition, increase nurses’ sense of security, revamp ICU nurse and sitter’s hiring structure and working schedules, renew ICU visiting hour, reorganize jobs and reform gain-sharing plan.

Background
The ICU nurses do not receive any sort of encouraging support even though, they are working hard and concerned about the quality of care service provided. The ICU nurses compared themselves to external pool nurses and felt that they paid lower than pool nurses but extra workload. The ICU nurses do not believe that good performance will be rewarded with desired outcomes, gain-sharing plan, and the nurses do not believe that their effort will produce good performance.

Recommendations
Improve ICU Nurses’ Esteem And Recognition
Not only physicians, but also ICU nurses should be granted a recognition accolade often which can build a build a healthy work environment with meaningful recognition, Manager can motivate ICU nurses by recognizing their work with a simple “Thanks for all your hard work and dedication” or “Great job” through formal and informal communication, these kinds of positive feedback are valuable. Also, Managers can provide signs of accomplishment such as job titles, praises and more challenging tasks. The outcomes associated from receiving acknowledged recognition last longer and have a deeper interpersonal impact on the recipient.

Increase ICU Nurses’ Sense Of Security
To prevent contracting conditions such as tuberculosis and hepatitis, hospital must enhance a code of hygiene enhancement to nurses, patients and visitors, such as standard hygiene precautions in ICU training, reminders on notice board, install ultraviolet lights and provide protection gowns at ICU entryway. Also, hospital can cooperate along with hospital's security guard or police and deploy security alarms in ICU area which links to police office in case of any violent events.

Restriction On ICU Visitors
The 24 visiting hours policy is designed to provide unlimited visitor access while maintaining good patient-centered care and improve patient and family satisfaction. However, visitors should not interrupt ICU nurses’ duty when the following processes are currently being executed, such as glucose monitoring, dressing changes should be completed by ICU nurses and at any given moments nurses can report to the manager if they feel uncomfortable about the patient family.

Revamp ICU Nurses And Sitters Hiring Structure
To address understaffed issue and increase nurse and patient ratio, Human Resource (HR) should hire more professional and skilled nurses who have obtained nurse state license and set the goals or duty to the applicants at the time of hiring. HR should also provides well-defined job descriptions and performance standards to applicants, nurses and sitters, and review employees’ performance every quarter.