Mentoring and TeamSTEPPSRTM Implemented to Improve Patient Safety, to Improve Nurse Retention, and to Improve Patient Satisfactio

The purpose of this direct practice improvement project was to determine if there was a relationship between mentoring, TeamSTEPPSRTM, patient safety, nurse retention, and patient satisfaction on a medical surgical unit in a small 49-bed medical center. The first of two questions for this direct practice improvement project was concerning the relationship between mentoring, patient safety, nurse retention, and patient satisfaction. The second question was concerning the relationship between the TeamSTEPPS RTM program, patient safety, nursing retention, and patient satisfaction. A quantitative correlation design with Pearson r Correlation was used to determine if there was a relationship between patient safety, nursing retention, and patient satisfaction with the implementation of mentoring and the TeamSTEPPSRTM program. The systems theory was utilized for this project because this theory is based upon looking at the significance of relationships within an environment. There were 14 nurses who participated in the project with eight newly hired nurses and six experienced nurses who either worked on the medical surgical unit or who were nursing supervisors. This direct practice improvement project discovered that mentoring, along with the TeamSTEPPSRTM program demonstrated a low correlation relationship with patient safety. There was an increase in medication errors and the number of patient falls that occurred during the four weeks of the project implementation. There was a positive relationship, with a moderate correlation between the implementation of mentoring and the TeamSTEPPS RTM program with nurse retention and patient satisfaction. These results support the implementation of mentoring and TeamSTEPPSRTM .