professional practice model (PPM) is a framework that helps nurses practice, collaborate, communicate, and develop professionally to provide the highest-quality patient care. Our newly developed PPM is central to our professional practice and nursing excellence journey at University of Utah Health Hospitals & Clinics (UUHC). It integrates the beliefs, theories, and systems we share for nursing practice with our mission, vision, and values.
Professional practice models increase quality of care along with RN engagement and satisfaction in healthcare organizations. Establishing our own reflects our commitment to nursing excellence and elevating nursing practice at UUHC.
To me, a professional practice model means encouraging nurses to be able to flourish as professionals.”
Brenda Baker, Radiation Oncology
Developing Our Professional Practice Model
Creating a PPM doesn’t come easily. It took several months of research, organization and collaboration across nursing and interprofessional teams to reveal a final product.
Here’s how we did it:
1. Designated a group to oversee design and development
Our PPM was developed by the Patient Care Excellence Council – a group of UUHC nurses that works to advance excellence in patient care through improving nursing practice, policies, and procedures in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams across the organization. They partnered with Tipton Health to help guide the process and incorporate our feedback into the design of the model.
Patient Care Excellence Council Members
I was excited to be part of the process because for so many years I've been a worker bee. It’s been eye opening to think more broadly about my work, and especially the work of everyone around me. It helped broaden my view of my profession.
Rebecca Grewe, Cardiology
What were you most proud of when developing the model?
Natalie Goodwin: I like the Shared Governance part just because I think that's what we need to bring to our new nurses to make them realize this is their career, their nursing job. They need to speak up early and make it what they want of it, not just what others are making of it for them.
Jen Simmons: I'm most proud of those four values in the middle: Integrity, Collaboration, Health & Well-being and Innovation. I think they really are at the heart of what we want to value when we're implementing things, and this is who we are as professional staff.
Gigi Austria: The Art of Nursing - I love that we included that. So much of what we do is based on research and evidence, but there's so much more to nursing - being able to care for people and do all of those technical, busy things that we have to do and still keep the patient, the whole person at the forefront of our minds.
2. Collected theories and evidence
The council began by reviewing nursing theorists while considering the mission, vision, and values of University of Utah Health Hospitals and Clinics and the Department of Nursing. They identified concepts like compassion, integrity, respect, and people-centeredness as central to who we are and felt they would be important parts of our UUHC nursing professional practice model.
Being involved in the development of our nursing PPM was an exciting learning opportunity with a glimpse into the work that hospitals do to earn the prestigious award of magnet status. It was meaningful to me to see the level of commitment that U Health has to the evidence-based theoretical framework.
Brenda Baker, Radiation Oncology
3. Gathered buy-in from nursing and interprofessional partners
Along with the core team of nurses on the Patient Care Council, we solicited feedback from nurses and health system partners. Feedback from these focus groups determined that “Patient Centered” belonged at the center of our model. While this was different than the perspective of the Patient Care Council, it was determined that "Patient Centered" matched more closely to our current culture, and we would work to shift toward a "people-centered” philosophy as we continue along our nursing excellence journey. These groups also reported integrity, respect, compassion, and quality were core to our practice and those concepts were incorporated into the model.
I do like having "Patient Centered" in the middle. For our organization, we’re very patient-centric and that was highly important to us when designing the model. Our patients land right in the center of the model as being the core of what we have to do.
Scott Christensen, Nursing Administration
4. Finalized the model
During the focus group sessions, polls identified three graphics that were taken back to the Patient Care Council to vote. The initial favorite representing a helix was later determined by Tipton’s designers as unable to support the complexity of our model, which led to the rendition of the compass.
The compass’s four arrows point to major themes that emerged: Our Values, The Art of Nursing, The Science of Nursing, and The Patients and Community we serve. It is encompassed by foundational principles that will power our journey to nursing excellence: Transformational Leadership, Shared Governance, and Professional Nursing Practice.
Using Our Professional Practice Model
Learning how to incorporate our PPM into our daily work is equally important as its design. The PPM was designed as a compass to help guide nurses in their decision-making at UUHC. Each of our decisions and all nursing practice decisions should align with our PPM. From the bedside to the boardroom, it will inform everything from care delivery to strategic planning.
Having the patient at the center means that all the decisions we're making should be for the good of the patient. Purchasing new products, building new areas – all of those things should be put through the patient's perspective.
Kristine Hoenin, Nursing Quality
When we’re mapping out our practice or making recommendations for our practice, we really need to go back to what is at the heart, what is the core of our nursing practice. If we ever have questions about why we're doing something, we can look at the compass to see where our effort falls within the professional practice model.
Scott Christensen, Nursing Administration
I think it helps guide you and make you realize what being a nurse is and what our alignment is. It's important to have that model behind you to help guide you in your day-to-day practice.
Natalie Goodwin, Family Medicine
Education and information about our PPM will be shared with each new nurse at UUHC through Nurse Residency and Transition to Practice Programs. We’ve also developed resources to help current nurses interpret our model and consider how they can apply it to their practice. Our PPM is displayed in all nursing areas to remind nurses each day about the values and beliefs that guide and define their practice.
Reviewing and Updating Our Professional Practice Model
It is important our PPM continues to meet the needs of UUHC nurses. We will revisit our model regularly and collectively to ensure it grows and adapts with us and continues to reflect who we are and how we practice.
Patient Care Excellence Council
Nursing excellence extends beyond direct patient care. Nurse Scientist Scott Christensen breaks down the science of nursing and invites UUH nurses to engage in evidence-based practice and research and share their ideas and accomplishments broadly.
Magnet program director Gigi Austria and quality manager Dane Falkner explain how problem-solving structures like Shared Governance and Value Culture complement each other. When practiced together, these approaches can be a recipe for optimal outcomes.
Magnet Program Director Gigi Austria unpacks the Magnet model with the first in a five-part series. Here she describes how transformational leaders achieve successful outcomes by sharing their vision to create an environment where everyone is empowered and engaged.
