Development of a reliable and valid organization-specific professional practice assessment tool.
OBJECTIVE
This article describes a study to devise an organization-specific professional practice model (PPM) assessment that reflects actual unit involvement. A secondary study goal is the development of a unit-based index that can be used to conduct comparative analyses in an efficient way.


METHODS
Each of the 5 elements of the organization's PPM was represented by 1 or more items on an author-developed instrument. The tool was structured so that item scores could be summed to achieve a single subscale for each PPM element and further aggregated into a total score.


METHODS
The instrument was administered to a 40% random sample of all regularly scheduled, full- and part-time registered nurses in an academic, community Magnet hospital in 2003 and 2005. Descriptive statistics were calculated for items, subscales, and summary scores for each patient care unit and overall. A weighted, unit-based index was developed to reflect each unit's score on a scale of 100.


RESULTS
The 2003 assessment response rate was 51% (n = 200); the 2005 response rate was 48% (n = 193). Subscale scores and a total PPM score were calculated by summing the values of each individual item. Submissions enabled calculations of total scores by unit, mean scores by item, and the development of a unit-specific PPM index of performance.


CONCLUSIONS
Beyond shared principles of empowerment, the specifics of each organization's PPM may differ in those key components of care delivery nurses are empowered to effect. Thus, fidelity to the organization-specific PPM is not well tested with generic decisional-involvement instruments. An organization-specific assessment such as this one can provide evidence of not only organizational PPM fidelity but a quantitative method to ensure that staff nurse decisional involvement is continuously evolving to an ever higher state.
Hitchings
Kim
K
Center for Professional Excellence, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, PA, USA. Kim.Hitchings@lvh.com
Capuano
Terry
T
Bokovoy
Joanna
J
Houser
Janet
J
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003657:Decision Making; D055318:Evidence-Based Nursing; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010414:Pennsylvania; D011209:Power, Psychological; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires