The Organizational Context of Nursing Practice

This book explores the various features of work environments that affect nurses' experiences of their work, their interactions with co-workers and patients, and ultimately health care quality and patient outcomes.  Using a broad and comprehensive approach, the authors identify the most extensively researched and best-understood concepts in the field and presents a critical and up-to-date review of the evidence regarding causes and effects of work environment features. It then presents evidence regarding organizational interventions aimed at broad ranges of clinical practices and outcomes, such as team-based interventions and management practices to improve practice climate. 

The ideas, approaches, and evidence are presented by a team of researchers and experienced practitioner/leaders; taken together, they form a state-of-the-science toolkit. Unique features of this book include a systematic presentation of best practices in nursing and healthcare leadership, along with the conceptual grounding and empirical support for these approaches, and extensive demonstrations of how these practices, many of which originated in North America, apply to European contexts. 

Peter Van Bogaert is a registered nurse and has a bachelor degree in nursing sciences (St Vincentius, School of Nursing, Antwerp, 1983), master degree in sciences (University Ghent, 1989) and doctoral degree in medical sciences (University of Antwerp, 2009). He has more than 30 year experience in acute health care (Antwerp University Hospital) as a nurse (1983-1990), a nurse manager (1990-200), a director of nursing (2000-2012) and a researcher (since 2012), respectively. He is chair of the Department of Midwifery and Nursing Sciences since October 1, 2010. As chairman of the research group Centre for Research and Innovation in Care (CRIC), he is responsible for the development and evaluation of regional, national and international scientific collaboration. He supervised various courses in the master programme Nursing and Midwifery Sciences (management and innovation 20 ECTS, trans-mural care delivery 5 ECTS, quality of care and patient safety 5 ECTS). In addition, he is a member of the Belgian Board of Quality of Nursing Care (chair of the committee Nursing Quality Indicator Development), member of the Nursing Quality Indicators for Reporting and Evaluation (NQuire) International Advisory Committee Registered Nurses' Associations Ontario Canada.