Are Nurses Accountable to Their Patients?

Nurses registering for the seminar

A seminar held on August 23 in Issam Fares Hall showed that less than half of nurses in Lebanon feel they are accountable to their patients. According to Gladys Mouro, director of Nursing Services, the concept of accountability has always been of concern, yet a recent survey of AUB nurses, doctors, and researchers, showed that most nurses in Lebanon do not have a complete grasp of the concept. Only about half the nurses surveyed felt accountable to their patients, and fewer than two percent felt they needed to be accountable to their patients.

The seminar, which was one of the events marking the 100th anniversary of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, was organized by the Nursing Services Department, in collaboration with the Order of Nurses in Lebanon. Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and managed by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services (AMIDEAST), the seminar was entitled "Towards Better Nursing Accountability in Lebanon" and included a poster contest.

Among those attending the event were USAID-Lebanon Mission Director Raouf Youssef, Order of Nurses President Ursula Rizk, and AUB Medical Center Director Munthir Kuzayli, as well as a large number of healthcare professionals from AUB.

The study, which had been conducted earlier this year by a team of researchers and healthcare professionals, concluded that nurses in Lebanon should be better sensitized to the concept of accountability in order to improve performance and the standard of care. Since there is a correlation between job satisfaction, level of education, ambition, and gender, those factors should be taken into account when devising an intervention program.

The seminar also included a video-conferencing session with Shannon Sayles, director of Safety and Performance Excellence at Sentara Healthcare in Norfolk, Virginia, who shared her experience on accountability with those at AUB.

Winners of the poster contest were announced as well. The AUB team, consisting of Dareen Sleiman, Nina Khatib, and Hera Tashjian, took first prize for a poster featuring cardiac arrest, and the second and third prizes went to the Hotel Dieu and the Rafic Hariri governmental hospital teams respectively.