Highlighting nursing excellence at Sinai Health

Each year, Nursing Week is celebrated across Canada during the week of Florence Nightingale’s birthday on May 12. It is an opportunity to recognize the vital role nurses play across the health-care system. This year’s theme, The Power of Nurses to Transform Health, reflects the many ways Sinai Health nurses are shaping care at the bedside and beyond.

“Nurses at Sinai Health bring courage, passion and commitment to their work. We see this come to life every day from delivering compassionate and high-quality care at the bedside to advancing our academic practice strategy.” says Jane Merkley, Executive Vice President, Chief Nurse Executive and Chief Operating Officer.

Transforming care through excellence and innovation

Sinai Health has a long-standing commitment to nursing excellence. Mount Sinai Hospital remains the only hospital in Canada to achieve Magnet® designation, an international recognition of the highest standards in nursing practice and patient care. 

That commitment is reflected in the organization’s investment in nurse-led research and innovation. As home to the Centre for Nursing Excellence (CNE) within the Science of Care Institute (SCI), Sinai Health supports nurses to accelerate the science of care and drive meaningful change across the system.

SCI and CNE’s work centres on advancing compassionate, fundamental care. This includes ensuring nurses are equipped with evidence and enabled to meet people’s essential physical, psychosocial and relational needs. Collectively, SCI and CNE are leading research in this area that is improving care today while helping shape it in the future.

“The generation and dissemination of nursing knowledge into practice is the foundation of our profession. When nurses are grounded in the latest evidence and research, they can confidently and competently apply this knowledge to provide person-centred, impactful, care,” says Dr. Lianne Jeffs, Chief Scientific Officer of Science of Care Institute, Research and Innovation Lead and Senior Clinician Scientist with the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) at Sinai Health.

Across Sinai Health, nurses are participating in nurse-led models of care, initiatives, and practice standards leading quality improvement initiatives that are person-centered, high-quality care, and compassionate care practices. 

Inspired leadership

Involvement in unit-based councils is an important aspect of nursing at Sinai Health. These roles allow for leadership opportunities and empowerment to help make decisions, engage stakeholders in the implementation of priorities, and demonstrate a strong commitment to academic practice.

Clinical governance and infrastructure play a key part in decision-making and help drive the development of a sustainable health-care system. Supporting nurse leadership across the entire career span allows them to enhance their skills and pursue their career goals.

Supporting the next generation

Nurses are also shaping the future of health care through education and mentorship.

Programs across Sinai Health support new nurses as they transition into practice, including mentorship initiatives in clinical areas such as the Ministry of Health’s Clinical Scholar Program. Experienced nurse scholars across both campuses provide clinical mentorship and upskilling support to new graduates, internationally educated nurses and early- to mid-career nurses. Over the past year, more than 380 nursing students were mentored at Hennick Bridgepoint Hospital alone, reflecting the growing impact of this work. 

At Mount Sinai, Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) marked one year of service, as part of a broader effort to optimize nursing scope of practice and strengthen the mix of RNs and RPNs across units, supporting recruitment, retention and ensuring patients receive the right care, from the right provider, at the right time.

Mount Sinai’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) has achieved accreditation as a Practice Transition Program by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre (ANCC). The Level 3 NICU specializes in state-of-the-art medical and technical care for extremely premature and low birth-weight infants. For that reason, specialized training is required to handle the complexities of patient care for premature babies in the NICU.

Ongoing learning is a hallmark of nursing at Sinai Health, with opportunities to expand skills and practice to full scope across a wide range of specialties.

The power behind patient experience

Whether leading research, advancing quality and safety, or providing compassionate care at the bedside, nurses are central to every patient experience at Sinai Health.

During Nursing Week, Sinai Health celebrates the expertise, dedication and impact of its nursing community and the essential role they play in transforming health, every day.