Staff Nurse III Kaiser Permanente Fremont Medical Center Hayward, California, United States
Disclosure(s):
Sienna Tango, MSN, RN, BS Psychology: No financial relationships to disclose
Description: Identification of problem: The facility's RN Excellence survey in April/May 2024 presented low scores in some nursing units. As the facility embarks on Magnet designation journey, meeting the qualifying scores for the said survey is essential for application. The survey results also reflected need to improve RN's work satisfaction because nurse work satisfaction has been attributed to positive patient care quality & patient's view of their care.
Description of team: Repulsing chosen nursing units in the same year was deliberately decided. This was taken to the facility's Professional Governance Council. The council designated staff represented & managers of the chosen units to work on initiatives. It would be measured by a unit repulse using the similar survey. The Main Operating Room (MOR) unit was one of the units.
Preparation and planning: The MOR reflected low score in the area of "interprofessional relationship". Literature searches were done for possible initiative ideas. "Team building activity" came about. Paper survey w/ staff choices of preferred activities were created, core team was built, budget was carefully allocated, venue were surveyed & booked, program was created as well as the sequence of implementation.
Assessment: During morning huddles, input of staff were obtained regarding possible reasons for the low score in the said area. Most reported that this was due to job dissatisfaction brought about by lack of teamwork & disconnect among peers. Studies have identified that team building activities have shown to improve collaboration & communication among nurses which were components of interprofessional relationship.
Implementation: From the survey of preferred activities, fall picnic in the park, holiday potluck at work & holiday event outside the campus were the topmost in the list & were carried out. Activities such as personal messages from the unit managers & staff organizers of the events & "getting-to-know" & competitive games were embedded in the program of the events. Staff who participated in the events also shared their experiences among the rest of the MOR staff during shift huddles.
Outcome: The outcome of the initiative was measured via RN excellence survey conducted in December 2024 looking into the score of "interprofessional relationship" area. The result showed a significant improvement of 3.95 compared to that of April/May 2025 result of 3.58. Team building activities had a significant effect on the score of interprofessional relationship area from the RN excellence survey in December 2024. This could account for the connection built with peers & empathized with each other. The intervention could also be accounted for by the improvement on scores of other areas being measured in the survey, such as "adequacy in staffing" & "leadership access & responsiveness." This could be due to the perception of shift being covered by staff willing to work extra shift to help with staffing needs rooted from peer appreciation, as well as the staff witnessing the tangent support the Periop leadership team displayed during the events & the entire intervention process.
Implications for perioperative nursing: Perioperative nursing is built on teamwork, collaboration & effective communication. These elements highly contribute to patient safety in the OR. In order to make all these happen, it has to be grounded in a good interprofessional relationship. Team building activities & exercises showed significant effect in promoting this e among staff.
