Research - Critical Care Mentoring Study

Testing a Program to Enhance Retention and Recruitment of Nurses

When nursing leaders at UHN started noticing a decline in staff satisfaction and morale in the ICUs, along with an increase in vacancies there, they began looking for innovative ideas to address these issues. At the same time, there was an increased interest in hiring new graduate nurses into the ICU environments – something that had not been done in the past. In order to address the staff satisfaction issues and to help foster a positive experience for new graduate nurses entering the ICU, Dr. Debra Bournes (Director of Nursing – New Knowledge and Innovation) and Dr. Mary Ferguson-Paré (Past Vice President – Professional Affairs and Chief Nurse Executive) decided to find a way to test their humanbecoming/80-20 professional development model there. The result was a research study that combined the 80-20 model with a mentoring program; it was funded by the Nursing Secretariat of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. The study intervention has just been completed, and the preliminary results are proving to be very positive!

Participants in the study included 11 experienced critical care nurses and 11 new graduate nurses with an interest in a career in critical care; the participants came from units across UHN. The study intervention lasted for one year; during that time, all participants were scheduled into an 80-20 model (80-20 is a professional development model in which nurses spend 80% of their salaried time in direct patient care and 20% of their salaried time on professional development, including focused learning about humanbecoming-guided patient-centered care, and their own independent professional development activities). All participants attended structured teaching-learning sessions, which included specific content related to mentoring, patient centered care, and humanbecoming theory-based nursing. All sessions were discussion-based, and focused on reflective practice.

The new “spin” on this research study was the mentoring program. The program was designed to support mentors to work with protégés in ways that cocreated opportunities for them to commit with enthusiasm to working together. The experienced critical care nurse mentors were paired with new graduate nurse protégés. The mentors also participated in facilitated seminars in which they learned about the humanbecoming mentoring model, and reflected on their own journeys as mentors. In addition to participating in the structured teaching-learning sessions, a portion of the professional development time for the mentor-protégé dyads was spent exploring creative ways of expressing, enhancing, and shaping their experiences with nursing. They identified ideas for innovations, which led to projects that were completed over the course of the study. While working on projects together, the mentors and protégés developed and reflected on their relationships.

The projects are:

Wellness for Staff Nurses at UHN
Evaluating the Critical Care Outreach/Response Team
Teaching Tools for New Grads, Students, and Novice Nurses
Evaluating and Improving the Night Shift Experience
Communicating With and Supporting Children and Their Families When a Parent is Ill
Activities Program for Long Term or ALC Patients in Acute Care Hospitals
Improving Communication Between Staff Nurses and Nurse Practitioners
Promoting a Culture of Wellness in Critical Care
Experience of Nurses Grieving the Loss of a Patient

Comments from participants include:

“You gave me hope and a vision that we have the ability to go forward and challenge our practice as nurses.”
“The classes were a safe environment to reflect on both good and bad practice situations.”
“This helped me to realize I can do things that I previously thought were not possible or that I didn’t think I could do.”
“The classes were supportive – to talk about issues, get support from others in the class – people shared so many different stories – it is refreshing to talk about and share such a variety and to self-reflect as well as group-reflect.”
“Sometimes this helped us realize that there are worse things than we are experiencing and reflect on how to learn from those stories/situations.”
“Eye-opening for both mentors and protégés; thought there would be more one-sided learning (i.e., protégé learning from mentor) but it has been equal.”
“Positive experience 'warming up to' the humanbecoming theory – after having had a chance to read it over and learn about it.”

The final results of the study, which will include further details about participant experiences, as well as the impact of the study on staff satisfaction, sick time, and overtime, will be available in the new year. Stay tuned!

To learn more about this innovative initiative, contact:
Carolyn Plummer, Project Manager, Innovation at carolyn.plummer@uhn.on.ca