Shaping humane healthcare systems

Transforming the culture of the workplace to improve patient satisfaction, nurse retention, and patient care outcomes requires a wide range of nursing leadership skills. Lessons learned from other organizations and from the successful transformation of the public mental health system of care are discussed. Innate tendencies of organizations to simplify in efforts to manage complexities of the workplace contribute to the challenge. Key to improving nurses' satisfaction is assisting them to experience themselves as effective and their work as meaningful. A model entitled BRIDGES is presented that emphasizes the importance of collaboration, effective communication, and mission focus to our success.