Introduction
Successful healthcare organizations implement continuous improvement programs to ensure patients receive the expected safety, high-quality care, improved outcomes, and positive experiences. Creating such a culture is not a quick fix but a long-term commitment that requires gradual organizational change. A culture of excellence in healthcare refers to an organization-wide approach to working and thinking that results in everyone achieving measurable improvements in the quality of patient care (Foshee et al., 2022). This paper discusses defining the foundations of a culture of excellence, examining its role, vision, and values within a healthcare organization, and identifying appropriate leadership strategies.
Culture of Excellence
A culture of excellence is one of the most critical factors in an organization’s sustainable growth and performance. Many businesses today incorporate the pursuit of excellence into their company value statements, contracts, and management practices. A culture of excellence is also appropriate for the healthcare industry as it responds to the need to improve patient safety, quality of care, and facility work environments (Montgomery et al., 2020). Most hospitals’ mission, vision, and values are continuous improvement and gain as their core aspirations. Incorporating a culture of excellence into policies and regulations helps businesses and leaders develop leadership approaches to maintain excellence at all organizational levels (Lasrado & Kassem, 2020). Creating a culture of nursing excellence requires strategic planning, transformational leadership, and effective change management.
Overview of Mission, Vision, and Values
NYU Langone Medical Center is one of the nation’s leading world-class centers for clinical care, biomedical research, and medical education. It is an integrated academic medical center focusing on patient satisfaction (NYU Langone, 2022). The center is located in the heart of Manhattan and includes five hospitals (NYU Langone, 2022). NYU Langone staff are dedicated to caring, which increases the patient’s confidence in the services provided. The medical center states that the most important value within the company is transparency and honesty (NYU Langone, 2022). Although the organization’s health workers talk about collaboration and safety, their actions are primarily aimed at the client, so it is difficult to note their attitude towards teamwork.
NYU Langone Medical Center’s values guide staff to deliver high-quality services, improve patient safety, perform at their best, and continually improve. The mission, vision, and values of the organization reflect a culture of excellence as they strive to improve the lives of their patients through actions based on faith and pure intentions (NYU Langone, 2022). However, the organization needs to consider the teamwork that underpins the culture of excellence. In addition, according to their statements, medical center hospitals do not emphasize the importance of innovation but only the improvement of individual and systemic results, which is also important (NYU Langone, 2022). However, the organization lacks a commitment to continuous improvement in the medical practices of the entire organization. Nevertheless, by addressing and addressing the weaknesses identified, NYU Langone Medical Center will be able to fully live up to its culture of excellence and increase its efficiency and success.
Leading a Culture of Excellence
As healthcare systems increasingly face the challenge of delivering more value to their patients, interest in continuous quality improvement and related approaches continues to grow. Academic research is emerging showing the relationship between continuous improvement organizations and their results, but the challenge is how to implement and sustain this approach (Medeiros, 2020). Medical staff, point-of-care staff and workers significantly impact patients and their outcomes. Sharing information, data, results, budgeting processes, staffing/schedules, and other organizational information with people who can influence improvements are critical (Lasrado & Kassem, 2020). One common leadership strategy that will foster a culture of excellence at NYU Langone is a commitment to continuous learning. Sharing experiences among employees allows employees to understand how they work and adjust or make changes to improve the process.
The Role of a Nurse Educator
A nurse educator can be the main leader in promoting an excellence culture among new hires and working for nursing staff. They are responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and reviewing nursing education programs. Nursing educators may provide general nursing classes or focus on specialized areas such as nursing informatics and psychological or pediatric nursing (Medeiros, 2020). It will be essential to develop teamwork within NYU Langone, as the analysis revealed that this is a weakness of the organization.
NYU Langone also needs to be encouraged to innovate, be creative and take risks. However, one should always keep in mind the core values of the organization, which are primarily focused on patient safety and satisfaction. Nurse educator, as a leader, must create an atmosphere of trust and respect within the team (Medeiros, 2020). Holding weekly meetings with an entire team allows them to share their successes, and even allowing them to be honest about their day-to-day challenges can set the tone for a trusting and respectful space (Medeiros, 2020). It can also be an opportunity to share ideas and suggestions for improving the organization’s performance.
Conclusion
A culture of excellence is essential to any healthcare organization whose values focus on delivering high-quality patient care and empowering employees to work effectively. Managers can guide staff to personal and professional development by exchanging experiences and ideas. Studying the Culture of Excellence helps to understand the importance of excellence for a medical organization and its employees. It allows the vision and values to be directed towards providing the best care to the patient, increasing their satisfaction with the services provided. Nurse educators play an important role in disseminating employees’ concepts and professional development.
References
Foshee, C. M., Walsh, H., Van der Kloot, T. E., Boscardin, C. K., Calongne, L., Telhiard, N. S., Ullman, C., Backus, C., & Peyre, S. E. (2022). Pursuing excellence: Innovations in designing an interprofessional clinical learning environment. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(1), 125–130. Web.
Lasrado, F., & Kassem, R. (2020). Let’s get everyone involved! the effects of transformational leadership and organizational culture on organizational excellence. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 38(1), 169–194. Web.
Medeiros, M. (2020). Cultivate a culture of excellence at the point of care. Nursing Management, 51(5), 7–9. Web.
Montgomery, A. J., Van der Doef, M., Panagopoulou, E., & Leiter, M. P. (2020). Connecting health care worker well-being, patient safety and organizational change: The triple challenge. Connecting Healthcare Worker Well-Being, Patient Safety and Organisational Change, 1–7. Web.
NYU Langone Health Mission, Vision & Values. Comparably. (2022). Web.