Each member of the Department of Nursing and Patient Care Services at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital shares a deep commitment to providing the highest quality of care to the children and families we serve. The professionalism of our skilled, experienced, and above all, compassionate, nursing staff is apparent in everything we do.
Our nurses play a key role in promoting patient safety through their participation in all Hospital initiatives that are designed to achieve a culture of high-reliability in quality, safety, and service, and provide our patients and their families with an outstanding environment of care. In emphasizing patient- and family-centered care, we focus on quality and safety, excellence in clinical practice, research, and education. The Hospital's promise of We Put Patients First is reinforced through our partnering and collaborating with families in order to provide the safest, most comprehensive care possible.
The Department of Nursing is committed to creating a workplace that prepares our nurses to care for the sickest of patients. We provide continuing education and training that empowers nurses to create an environment of innovation. We encourage nurses at all levels throughout the Hospital to be the best that they can be and to make a difference in the lives of their patients and families. In addition, we conduct periodic staff surveys to identify ways to support nurses that allows them to spend more time directly on patient care. These efforts are reflected in our vacancy and turnover rates for nurses that remain significantly lower than the national and state averages.
The Department of Nursing is keenly aware of the importance of the bedside nurse having a voice in clinical practice through our shared governance council. Actively participating in councils that focus on quality, education, and operations, our nurses contribute to policy, decision-making, and best practices every day. We are committed to promoting education at each stage of a nurse's career, beginning with new graduates who benefit from mentoring programs to residency programs for experienced practitioners.
We also encourage our nurses to participate in professional organizations in the local, state, and national levels. We support them in finding their "voice" in order for them to advocate for their patients and families. We are also committed to helping those nurses who want to become involved in their professional associations so that they can influence the healthcare outcomes of their patients at a higher level, as well as influence their particular practice specialty.
We consider it a privilege to care for children whose families have placed their trust in us. We have the ability to make a difference in their lives. Years from now, they will remember the nurse who took their child's hand and said it will be okay.
As members of a tertiary and quaternary academic medical center, our nurses practice in a setting that provides world-class care and is at the cutting edge of science from prenatal care to cardiac and oncology services to transplant. We encourage you to visit us and learn about the wonderful opportunities in pediatric nursing available at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.