Congress Abstracts 2005

73

EMPOWERMENT: THE RESPONSE OF AN EMPLOYEE OPINION SURVEY. Sherri Rubinstein, RN, BSN, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX.

The healthcare industry is a competitive and demanding market. Recognizing that the employee is the most valuable asset the management of MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) conducted an Employee Opinion Survey in October 2002. The survey assessed the thoughts, opinions, and morale of employees.

Responses highlighted areas of strength and identified areas needing improvement. These outcomes were used to develop action-planning strategies. Typically, organizational decisions are made at the top and then communicated to the employee. Knowing that the best ideas often come from those individuals actually working with an issue the institution found a way to reverse the process by empowering the employee. By encouraging employee involvement in the decision making processes administration and faculty leaders sought measures to address issues of concern identified in the survey.

Management recruited teams throughout areas of the institution to identify the greatest area of concern within their clinical area. Teams were composed of diverse individuals with varied skills, talents, education, and responsibilities. One such diverse team, from the Sarcoma Center was formed and composed of eight individuals representing nursing, research, and support staff. The team focused on the improvement of employee satisfaction through the implementation of measures that supported optimal workload management by reduction of documentation.

When initially surveyed, 70% of the staff from this clinical area indicated that the workload was unreasonable. One contributing factor was the current amount of paperwork involved in patient care. The team developed a plan for consolidating three forms used daily in clinical practice into one tool. This form would be user friendly, easily accessible, and part of the permanent patient record. Within a period of 6 weeks, the implementation of this revised instrument reduced unfavorable results from 70% to less than 40%.

The expected outcomes were found to have numerous gains for both the employee and management. The reduction in paperwork and duplication resulted in cost containment, increased time efficiency, and improvement of employee morale. The end result of promoting employee involvement in the workplace was the generation of workable, meaningful solutions.