How a Culture of Kindness Can Improve Employee Engagement and Patient Experience - and Five Ways to Get There.

Aware of the evidence demonstrating how important employee engagement is to patient experience, outcomes and cost containment, leadership at Bluewater Health, Sarnia, was looking for strategic solutions to improve engagement. Work with compassion fatigue and resilience specialists suggested focusing on kindness. This article shares the hospital's experience designing and implementing their campaign - from a core committee that empowers and encourages teams to find their own creative ways to promote kindness, through to leadership's commitment to changing organizational culture.

Comparison of capillary blood sampling using an automated incision device with and without warming the heel.

Objective: To determine if heel warming prior to heelstick increases the volume of blood collected compared to no warming.

Study Design: Randomized controlled trial involving 100 preterm and term infants requiring capillary blood sampling (CBS), randomized to receive warming (Control) (n=50) or nonwarming (Experimental) (n=50).

Results: This sample of infants showed no benefit of warming the heel prior to CBS.