Nursing Executive Center
The Nursing Executive Center, which serves chief nursing officers and their leadership teams, tracks, reports, and analyzes the most critical issues facing hospital-based nursing organizations today and into the future. Our research staff—who are on call to assist members in matching their needs with Center best practice research—pursue insights within the strategic, operational, and clinical topics of greatest relevance to current industry challenges.
Sample of Recent Research
The Data-Driven Nursing Enterprise: Leveraging Data to Advance Hospital Nursing Performance
Leveraging the increasing demand for data collection to effectively drive performance improvement in the nursing organization.
- Prioritizing performance metrics most critical to the nursing enterprise
- Creating dashboards with explicit performance targets and action triggers
- Diagnosing and addressing emerging performance problems
- Making organizational performance data accessible and meaningful to the front lines
Engaging the Nurse Workforce: Best Practices for Promoting Exceptional Staff Performance
Balancing the increased workplace expectations of a new generation of nurses against the rising job performance demands of the hospital environment by truly engaging nursing staff in their day-to-day work.
- Building a unit-level infrastructure that isolates key problems, provides customized interventions, and ensures follow-through
- Providing executive leadership that enhances professional development, demonstrates support for nursing, and inspires staff commitment
Transitioning New Graduates to Hospital Practice: Profiles of Nurse Residency Program Exemplars
Developing a nurse residency program—which transcends standard orientation in duration, focus, and complexity—to strengthen new graduate training and retention. Presents findings from a study of leading nurse residency programs across the country.
- Building new graduates’ clinical and critical thinking skills
- Creating an emotional support network
- Promoting professional involvement and continuous development
- Assessing residency program value and advocating for sustained investment
Example of Tools and Resources for Members
Online Best Practice Compendium
Profiles of over 250 best practices, continually updated with new research; accompanying tools to assist with practice implementation
Online Teleconference Archive
Audio archive of research overviews presented by Center faculty