This program engages VUSN nurse educators, students, and champion nurses at VUMC to complete the following objectives:
Complete a free 4-week course on Caring Science provided by the Caring Science Institute - 12 VUSN faculty and 8 VUMC nurses will participate in the courses.
Identify VUSN and VUMC nurse champions to complete the Caritas Coach Program, a 6-month program to foster sustainability of the Caring Science collaboration.
Plan and implement Caring Science integration into the VUSN MN curriculum and with 4 VUMC pilot nursing units (medical/surgical, pediatric, palliative care as possible units) in conjunction with the VUMC nurse residency program.
Establish a Caring Science Council for VUSN faculty leaders and VUMC nurse leaders to monitor ongoing progress of the academic/clinical Caring Science partnership.
Collect pre- and post- measurements using Caring Science Metric Tools, including the Watson Caritas Measures, the Caring Assessment Tools and the Caring Factor Survey, all validated established measures. Data will be collected from VUSN MN nursing students who receive the curriculum content and from nurses on the 4 clinical units who will participate in the pilot phase. Nurse retention and engagement data, including Press Ganey patient satisfaction survey data related to nursing care, will also be available for purposes of the proposed project, as these data are collected/tracked annually from VUMC nurses. The VUMC Nurse Residency program also utilizes the Casey-Fink Practice Readiness Survey, which will enable ongoing assessments. The Watson Caritas Patient Score, a subjective measure that assesses how patients perceive the caring practices of hospital staff, will be collected from patients on the 4 pilot clinical units on which Caring Science has been integrated into care. As VUMC utilizes Press Ganey, the use of the Caring Science Metric tools can be added free of charge to the patient post discharge survey.
Build a Caring Science community of practice at VUSN/VUMC to create a sustainable caring culture and build a caring science clinical practice environment.
Create a sustainability plan for VUSN/VUMC through extension of Caring Science training across all nursing units on the VUMC campus and full integration in the VUSN MN (masters generalist nursing program) with exploration of content into the specialty nursing courses at MSN level.
As part of the sustainability plan, VUSN and VUMC leaders will explore the return on investment potential associated with increased nurse retention and also seek additional grant funding to continue to span the program across other VUMC units and potentially in other nursing programs at VUSN.