The impact of nursing on patients’ quality of care is significant, as nurses comprise the single largest group of healthcare professionals, and spend the most time with patients. Yet, nursing ranks as one of the occupations that has the lowest rates of satisfaction, according to CareerBliss. Despite being positioned in an integral role that has the capacity to positively affect the patient experience, nurses are reporting obstacles that hinder their own job satisfaction and their ability to care for their patients.

The results of a recent study of RNs found that though nurses are happy with their decision to pursue a nursing career, about 30% are unhappy with their current job. To put the repercussions of overworked and dissatisfied nurses into context, one study has found that nurses who are depressed, work in poor health, and work under stressful conditions are more likely to make mistakes on the job.

Since nurses often provide patients and their families with the first line of care, and often have the most interaction with them, it’s vital to begin improving nursing conditions for the benefit of their patients. Nurse satisfaction and its effect on patient care should be a top subject of focus, especially in light of the current nursing shortage and the number of newly insured Americans as a result of the Affordable Care Act. These two factors make it even more important for you to attract and retain top nursing talent.

Here are a few ways healthcare organizations can help increase job satisfaction amongst nurses, and by extension, create better patient outcomes:

Promote Educational Growth

A survey of close to 3,000 RNs found that nurses are eager to continue their education in the near future, and that 40% of nurses wanted to earn an advanced degree. With this in mind, medical facilities can develop retention programs to help their colleagues achieve their educational goals. Some ways leaders can assist motivated nurses are by implementing onsite educational programs, providing flexible scheduling options for nurses balancing work and school, offering tuition reimbursement, and sharing avenues through which nurses can earn certifications.

Provide Internal Opportunities for Advancement

If you have an open position, consider hiring/promoting from within. Why? It’s important to recognize and reward your hardest-working nurses because if your nurses can see that their employers value their presence in the organization and are willing to provide them with the tools they need for professional development, you might experience a reduction in your turnover rate. It’s also important for more recent hires to tangibly see the potential for long-term career growth within their place of employment. Seeing fellow nurses being promoted will let them know that if they work hard, there will be plenty of opportunities for them in the future.

Reinforce a Positive Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is a multi-faceted and deeply engrained issue within the nursing work environment. In a recent study of roughly 1,400 newly licensed RNs, 49% reported negative communication amongst colleagues on a regular basis. Leaders can tackle this issue by creating a positive model of professional and supportive workplace interaction. One way to boost morale is by implementing mentor programs, so nurses feel they have support from each other. It might also be a good idea to coordinate informal review sessions between department heads and their nursing staff to encourage positive feedback and a supportive working environment.

Support Safe Staffing

A top issue for nurses is the frequency with which they are placed in on-the-job predicaments that put their own health at risk. Nurse health is compromised when scheduling makes getting rest difficult, or when safe patient handling prioritizes the patient’s needs before the nurse’s.

A recent study found that 35% of the nurses sampled suffered from clinical depression. The researchers analyzing the data also found that loyalty amongst coworkers contributed to unhealthy nurses sometimes working through “chronic insomnia, depression and anxiety” in an effort to support their team.

While the American Nurses Association is campaigning for the development of safe patient handling standards, healthcare employers can set up safeguards against practices that endanger nurses by creating and enforcing protocol that allow nurses feel safe while performing their job.

In terms of benefits, safe staffing has proved to be effective in reducing the length of patient stay, has resulted in improved hospital satisfaction ratings by patients, and improves nurse satisfaction, which lowers nurse turnover.

Put A Stop to Dangerous Practices

When it comes to unsafe staffing, patients that present the greatest threat to nurses are those who are intoxicated, on drugs, are police suspects, or have the potential to carry out violent acts.

As lawmakers move to create laws to better protect those in the healthcare field, hospital leaders can find ways to make their facility a safer place. For example, potentially violent patients can be segregated to separate treatment rooms, and hospital personnel can be added to identify and handle potentially threatening patient situations. Even without the funds to take these measures, better training regarding safety policies can help prevent avoidable dangerous situations from occurring.

Shorter Shifts

More nurses on a unit working under supportive conditions have been found to deliver better outcomes, whereas understaffed nursing units typically result in more readmissions. In a study examining the effect of nurse shift length on patients’ assessment of care, findings showed that in hospitals that had a larger amount of nurses working longer shifts, patients reported poor quality of care, claimed that nurses sometimes or never controlled pain, sometimes or never offered help when patients wanted, and sometimes or never communicated well.

With the average shift lasting between 12 to 13 hours, nurses have to spend a lot of time alert and on their feet, which can be draining. Hospital leaders can help by breaking the number of consecutive hours nurses work in a shift into two halves with a longer break in the middle. If scheduling at least an hour break between nursing shifts isn’t feasible, you may want to give your nurses enough time to catch up on their rest before having them work another shift.

In order to retain as many nurses as possible, facilities can enrich nurse satisfaction by implementing rules for safe staffing and providing opportunities for career growth. By revising the current policies that exist in order to advance the potential of nurses, it will allow nurses to take better care of their patients, and themselves.

After all, the majority of nurses are happy with their occupational choices – it’s the lack of support and room to grow that deters them from finding satisfaction at their current station.