Best Practice, Monmouth Medical Center

Best Practice: Unit Nurse Leaders Drive Quality

Julie Villa, MSN, RN, CCRN-K & Darla Harmer, MSN, RN, Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch, NJMonmouth Medical Center shared governance leaders. Julie Villa is Director of Nursing Excellence & Innovation and Magnet Program Director. Darla Harmer is Administrative Director of Medical-Surgical Units.

Monmouth Medical Center shared governance drove the creation of a Unit Nurse Leader role that raised patient satisfaction to the 90th percentile on historically low-performing units.

Creating the Unit Nurse Leader Role

In an effort to improve care quality on the med/surg division units, the organization implemented a Unit Nurse Leader (UNL) role. Specifically, a UNL is a baccalaureate-prepared registered nurse whose job responsibilities differ from those of a nurse manager, assistant nurse manager, or clinical educator.

The UNL holds a quality-focused position on a specific unit and stays intensely involved in all quality issues regarding nurse-sensitive indicators and patient satisfaction. Each day, UNLs round on all patients on the unit, serving as a conduit between patients and management to ensure all needs and requests are communicated. Over time, this ongoing rapport proves to be a powerful tool when performing post-discharge patient callbacks, because the UNL can confirm whether the team met the patient’s expectations.

Impact on Unit Culture and Outcomes

In addition, the UNL contributes to unit morale by attending and, if necessary, facilitating the unit-based Professional Practice Council and staff meetings. Because UNLs are well-versed in unit issues, they support the organization’s strategic plan and voice concerns on behalf of staff who may not share the organization’s same priorities. Furthermore, UNLs collaborate closely with the nurse manager to ensure that comprehensive communication of unit operations remains current.

As a result, this role has proved to be a game changer on many units. It has elevated a historically low-functioning med/surg unit to the 90th percentile, according to patient satisfaction data.