Increasing Engagement and Feelings of Belonging of Teleworking Nurses to Improve Care Coordination: A Project in the Veterans Health Administration Healthcare System

Problem: Nurse disengagement contributes to poor patient experiences, decreased patient safety, and negative patient outcomes. Working in the virtual setting may contribute to feeling disconnected from the organization. The goal of this project was to implement an intervention that protects patient care by increasing nursing engagement and feelings of belonging among teleworking nurses. Methods: This quality improvement project had three distinct segments. This project (a) assessed current levels of engagement and feelings of belonging among nursing staff using Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Workplace Belonging Scale, and open-ended questions regarding staff's opinions on how to increase both engagement and feelings of belonging within the workplace. These results were utilized to, (b) develop and disperse eight evidence-based targeted interventions to all nursing staff over an eight- week period. Interventions were then (c) assessed by again administering the UWES and Workplace Belonging Scale to determine if levels of engagement and feelings of belonging changed post- interventions. Results: Targeted interventions were disseminated to 33 teleworking nurses, in one department, over an 8-week period. The results showed no statistically significant change in engagement or feelings of belonging post-intervention among the unit of teleworking nurses. Qualitative data indicate staff found the interventions to be effective despite lack of significant change between the pre- and post-survey scores. Conclusion: Despite institutional assessments that identified engagement as a problem, pre-intervention data revealed engagement among nursing staff to be high. Post-intervention measures did not demonstrate statistically significant changes in engagement or feelings of belonging. Interventions developed in this project may be applicable in other settings seeking to improve nurse engagement.