Mission, Vision and Philosophy

Nursing Service Organization Mission, Vision and Philosophy

Mission

A commitment to creating caring healing environments with authenticity and intentionality for all we reach and touch through practice excellence, innovation, scholarship and expressions of caring practices.

Vision

Advancing the art and science of nursing.

Philosophy

The philosophy of nursing at Einstein Healthcare Network is grounded in nursing being both a discipline and practice profession. As a discipline, we have a domain of knowledge, which has been developed over time by nursing theorists, leaders, scholars, and professional organizations. As a practice profession, we use the theoretically structures of this knowledge to inform education, practice and research. Watson's Theory of Human Caring is the over arching nursing theory that informs the mission, vision, philosophy and professional practice model for the nursing service organization. The conceptualization of our philosophy is based on Caritas Process 4 Developing and Sustaining a Helping Trusting Caring Relationship. Relationship includes relationship to self, relationship with colleagues, relationship with patients, and relationship with community. Authentic presence, genuine human connection, authentic listening to hear the story of another, being compassionate, and being present for another allow for caring moments.

Relationship to self is a commitment to understanding self, learning to move beyond ego, and practicing self care to have the needed energy to compassionately care for others. Self-care is critical to health and healing; if the Caritas nurse does not care for self it is impossible to compassionately care for others.

Relationship with colleagues includes all members of the health care team. This means being able to give and receive feedback in safe, respectful manner, practicing with a non-judgmental attitude, understanding the other's frame of reference, communicating differences effectively, working in collaboration to allow for healing to occur for patients and families, and engaging in effective healthy communications. Forming caring healing relationships with colleagues allows for integrating and honoring shared knowledge, skills, values, and gifts that each member brings to the team.

Relationship with patients involves moving beyond the routine procedures and tasks to understand what is most important to the person behind the patient and/or procedure. The relationship moves beyond the disease process and medications to understanding the meaning of illness from the patient's / family's point of view. Caritas nurses have an ethical responsibility to be genuinely present and centered for that patient in that moment while doing the needed tasks and procedures to allow for healing and caring moments.

Relationship to community or Communitas (Watson, 2008) refers to moving beyond the hospital to meeting the needs of the community we serve and reaching out to the global community. This means actively participating in community events, assessing and meeting the needs of the community, and developing community partnerships.