Meaningful Recognition of Pediatric Nurses via a Closed Facebook Group

Abstract

Hospitals where nurses report higher levels of meaningful recognition also report greater job satisfaction, decreased intent to leave, and increased quality of care. Despite a hospital-wide effort to recognize nurse achievements at a free-standing, pediatric, academic hospital, few nurses received recognition external to their units. A nursing council charged to address this problem chose to create an active social media community to provide meaningful recognition of nurses by highlighting their clinical inquiry and achievement via a closed Facebook (FB) Groups platform. This article describes implementation methods as the council identified aims and goals of the FB group, designated monthly moderators, and promoted the FB group to the nursing community. Consistent membership growth and FB group engagement were tracked using FB platform metrics. Results demonstrated meaningful recognition of nursing clinical inquiry and achievement. With this accomplishment, the successful platform was expanded to incorporate hospital-wide achievements from other disciplines.