Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1337263
28 PATIENT & CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE Safeguarding nurses' well-being is 'nonnegotiable': 6 leaders on supporting nurses through COVID-19 and beyond By Erica Carbajal T he COVID-19 pandemic has present- ed health systems with the ultimate balancing act: Care for an influx of patients and ensure nurses and front-line staff are adequately supported, all amid staffing and personal protective equipment shortages. Here, six nursing leaders discuss the mea- sures health systems have implemented to protect their nurses and where more work could be done as the U.S. continues to battle virus surges. Editor's note: Responses are presented alpha- betically and were lightly edited for length and clarity. Debra Albert, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of patient care services at NYU Langone Health (New York City): We sought to emotionally support our nursing staff by providing them with an outlet to share their stories and gather their experiences. We invited RNs to share their stories on a specially designed website, and they came flooding in. As COVID-19 rampaged through our health system, we implemented this because we knew RNs were ripped from their normal practices and thrust into new, unfathomable roles. ey were pushed to the brink of their clinical nursing skills and their emotional lim- its. Despite the unprecedented circumstances, we felt this was an opportune time to collect as many of the nursing stories as possible. We wanted a record of the feelings, per- ceptions and experiences of all our nurses. We needed to hear of their challenges and triumphs — what went well and what went wrong. ey expressed their fears and sad- ness, their sense of solidarity with other RNs pooling together their strengths and resourc- es, and their pride in providing the best care possible in the worst scenarios. Most of all, the stories enabled RNs to inspire and support each other — to keep pushing forward in the face of the unknown. Dale Beatty, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services at Stanford Health Care (Palo Alto, Calif.): Our focus has been to enhance our structure and processes to ensure our nurses have access to various resources to help them per- form their jobs safely and to take the very best care of themselves. In addition to rigorous infection prevention measures, we established new roles and pro- cesses to ensure that safety and well-being are part of our system. A new role, interim direc- tor of COVID-19 clinical practice response, allows focused attention to nursing practice in the pandemic. Training and staffing plans de- veloped by our Office of Research and Patient Care Services helped support staff and patient safety throughout numerous clinical trials related to caring for COVID-19 patients. As CNO, the hospital team and I heightened our focus on nursing resilience. Our nursing psychiatry liaison held numerous debriefing sessions with front-line staff. Our shared lead- ership council developed a subgroup to focus on access to numerous resilience tools across Stanford Medicine. Additionally, we've introduced programs to provide comfort and wellness for our nursing staff. ese include on-demand chair massag- es, free counseling sessions for staff and their families, pet therapy, music in our atrium, mindfulness resilience training, anxiety-man- agement guides and "tea for the soul" with our hospital chaplain. Vicki Brownewell, RN, chief nursing offi- cer and vice president at Houston Meth- odist West Hospital: I am very proud of the way our entire hospital system rallied around our front-line staff, including our nurses. Almost every employee was actively doing something outside of their normal duties to support our caregivers. For example, researchers created devices that provided extra protection for staff, and athletic trainers joined proning teams. At one point, corporate employees spent 10 percent of their time in the hospitals helping in many ways, such as being screeners or runners. While the physical help was appreciated, the sentiment of "we are all in this together" was just as important for our nurses. Across the country, health systems could have done better by ensuring staff were financially whole when business was slow. For example, Houston Methodist managed this by placing nurses in procedural and outpatient areas. Additionally, some hospitals could have better maintained ample access to PPE. Our system had a large stockpile and never ran out. However, when we started to run low, we strategized by sterilizing and reusing PPE. Moving forward, it will be important to look for ways technology can help provide safer, more effective care. is includes areas such as virtual communications, decision support and streamlined documentation. Hospital systems should continue to find ways for creative staffing and maintaining competen- cies outside of silos, which will allow us to be more flexible when sudden needs occur. Pat Diaz, RN, a nurse at University Hospital & Medical Center (Tamarac, Fla.) and delegate for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East: e COVID-19 pandemic has been a colossal failure in the way health sys- tems and the government treated nurses and other caregivers on the front lines of public health. We were called heroes and essential, but we were treated as expendable. Everyone knows about the critical shortages of PPE, but the lack of transparency and oversight, improper and inconsistent safety protocols, and other misguided policies put us at risk while we cared for our patients. On top of that, hospitals even cut staffing and benefits "We have to safeguard nurses' well-being and take heed of their invaluable insights so that we can recover faster and stronger." - Ernest Grant, PhD, RN, president of the American Nurses Association