Workplace Empowerment and Magnet Hospital Characteristics as Predictors of Patient Safety Climate

Abstract

This study tested a theoretical model derived from Kanter's theory of workplace empowerment by surveying a random sample of 300 registered nurses employed in acute care hospitals across the Canadian province of Ontario. The results of this study effectively replicated the findings of a previous exploratory study. Specific nursing practice environment characteristics that positively influence the climate of patient safety were identified. This study provides nurse leaders with ideas for improving the patient safety climate by improving the quality of nurses' work environments.

Global Use of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index

“…Composite scores reported by Canadian nurses ranged from 2.51 to 2.63 (Armstrong & Laschinger, 2006; Armstrong, Laschinger, & Wong, 2009; Laschinger, 2008). The 67 Australian nurses working in one hospital reported a composite score of 2.69 (Middleton et al, 2008).…”

“…Two reported significant positive associations between the practice environment, empowerment, and nurse-reported patient safety climate, with the combination of practice environment and nurse empowerment together explaining 46% (Armstrong & Laschinger, 2006) and 50% (Armstrong, Laschinger, & Wong, 2009) of the variance in the patient safety climate. Positive associations were reported also between the practice environment and nurse-physician communication (Manojlovich, 2005; Manojlovich et al, 2009; Manojlovich & DeCicco, 2007).…”

The historical social positioning of nursing and medicine: implications for career choice, early socialization and interprofessional collaboration

“…Effective nurse-physician collaboration has a well-recognized positive influence on organizational, professional and patient outcomes (Aiken & Patrician, 2000;Armstrong, Laschinger, & Wong, 2009;Scott, Sochalski, & Aiken, 1999). However, some scholars have argued that collaboration alone is insufficient as ''collaborative'' merely denotes mutual respect, but unequal power (Henneman, 1995;Kramer & Schmalenberg, 2003).…”

Magnetism and the Nursing Workforce

“…Armstrong, Laschinger, and Wong (2009) demonstrated an important link between the quality and nature of a hospital nurses' work environment and the level of the patient safety climate in those same environments. A unit-based leadership model involving an attending physician, nurse leaders, and a quality specialist, collaborating on relevant and shared issues resulted in a decrease in hospital-acquired infections (Jost & Rich, 2010).…”