Improving Patient Experience and Team Engagement with Environmental Services: Application of Watson's Theory of Human Caring

Patient experience and team engagement are key performance indicators in organizational strategic planning. Health-care organizations have a seldom-used resource within acute care settings that expands the ability to improve patients' experiences of their care as well as their own team engagement. Environmental services (ES) staff, the second largest health-care workforce, spend an average of 10 min per patient day interacting with patients and families. Few studies highlight how nursing theory may influence patient experience outside of the nursing role. This paper explores how ES staff at a non-profit rural 974-bed academic medical center impacted patient experience using nursing theory to promote a caring environment. Applying Watson's Theory of Human Caring and Caritas Processes (c) with ES team members beginning at leadership levels increased team engagement and improved patient experience. ES team members benefited from a professional nursing framework and from being integrated as a valued partner in advancing human caring.