Becker's Hospital Review

38 NURSING SPOTLIGHT Prioritize nurses and your health system will succeed, MUSC's CNO says By Gabrielle Masson P atti Hart, DNP, MSN, RN, is the chief nursing officer of Medical University of South Carolina Health's Charles- ton division, which includes MUSC Health University Medical Center. Joining MUSC in July 2016 as associate CNO, Dr. Hart took over as interim CNO in August 2019 and was afforded the full-time position in November 2019. Currently one of the largest employers and providers of care in South Carolina, the MUSC Health system is expanding quickly, at present building a new children's hospital. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length. Question: What is the greatest chal- lenge you're facing in your current role? Dr. Patti Hart: Learning the role of CNO has been challenging, especially with so many competing areas and interests. Ultimately, though, my No. 1 priority is always to take care of my staff and ensure quality and safety of care provided. Q: What do you think is misunder- stood about nursing today? PH: Too oen, executives don't think about the importance of their largest workforce: nurses. ey don't realize that nurses directly influence all the key indicators contributing to an organization's success — cost, safety. One of MUSC's strong suits is recognizing the val- ue of nurses with strong assessment skills. If nurses start cutting corners, care quality and patient engagement automatically decrease. Q: What efforts can be used to re- duce workplace violence for medical staff and nurses? PH: Most of the time, staff members have excellent relationships with patients and families — there are only a few patients who create issues. In response to some occurrences of physical abuse in the children's area of the hospital, we developed a behavioral response team. Now, an entire team responds when you call to help de-escalate the situation. Anyone can call the response number and an operator will designate a nurse, physician, security guard and social worker or chaplain to the team. e team then helps determine what is needed — medication, discussion, comfort, verbal de-escalation. Since the program's implementation, we have seen fewer physical injuries and intend to roll out the behavioral response team initiative throughout the whole hospital over the next six months. Q: What methods can be used to reduce nurse burnout? PH: We've really put a lot of effort and money into creating a healthy work environment. rough that process, we've also empowered our nursing staff. ey helped us revise staffing and scheduling policies to ensure everyone's safety. Our nurses actively engage in efforts to make us a better, healthier organization. Our nurses have also championed healthy eat- ing and living. Our facility received a $10,000 grant and the Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation Partners All In Award from the American Nurses Association. We also have a well- ness program at our facility that recognizes progress and goal achievement. We created an assignment system to help make sure nurses take their breaks and lunches. Workload was identified as a problem for our leadership team, so we're really trying to pro- mote a healthy work-life balance. Our leader- ship administration measures how oen we take lunch to ensure we take the designated five hours a week. We're also working toward flexible hours for nurse managers. is year, we're focusing on building person- al and team resilience. Leadership has to un- derstand the symptoms of burnout and how to mitigate them. It's difficult to reengage employees when they are already burned out, making prevention and mitigation crucial. All of these initiatives and values are so important, especially for MUSC — I don't see our growth slowing down. e best thing I can do in my role is provide our staff with the tools they need to grow as well. n Texas Health Resources rolls out digital rounding tool for nurses By Mackenzie Bean N urse managers at Arlington-based Texas Health Resources began using a new digital rounding tool in January to help improve patients' hospital experience, reported the Cleburne Times-Review. The app, accessed on an iPad mini, allows nurse manag- ers to note personalized information about patients, such as their food preferences or favored discussion topics. This information stays in Texas Health's system even if pa- tients are moved to a different unit or revisit the hospital at a later time. "If patients return to our care and have been rounded on in the past, we can know in advance what's important to them and anticipate service opportunities," Bianca Rad- ney, Texas Health's vice president of patient and family experience, told the Times-Review. The app also connects nurse managers to environmental services. Nurse managers can alert the department about an issue with a patient's room, monitor response time and track trends in patient complaints. Texas Health first piloted the app in several hospitals last year and launched a systemwide rollout Jan. 21. The three-phase process will likely continue through this sum- mer, according to Michele Kennedy, a patient experience consultant at Texas Health. n

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