"Last year, I had a newer nurse that was really struggling with patient documentation in our EMR. After a few fellow nurses and one of the physicians brought the issues to my attention, I did some further investigating prior to writing my review. After finding some areas for improvement, I included a performance improvement plan as part of her review. The plan involved some 1:1 coaching from myself and one of our experienced nurses on the unit. During my actual review with the employee, I kept things very positive and reaffirmed that I had was confident in her ability to improve. From that moment forward, the employee put a lot of effort into improving her documentation and continues to be great in that aspect to this day."

Although at times negative performance reviews are necessary, I always make sure I include positive things the staff member is doing also. I once had a nurse who was really struggling with time management and because of this her documentation was lacking and her ability to complete everything in her shift and get out on time was a large issue. She was so caring and compassionate and spent a great deal of time on patient education. Upon further investigation I found that she was spending so much time on education it was causing her to get behind on everything else. When I sat down with her I started with all the positives and emphasized how great of job she was doing in other areas. I discussed with her my concerns and together we came up with a way for her to complete her pt education in smaller time frames each time she visited the patient instead of all at once to improve her time management. The outcome ended up being very positive because she realized she can still educate the way she wants too and still get her other tasks done.