Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1446606
43 NURSING SPOTLIGHT Yale New Haven Health saved 470 hours of nurses' time in 1 year with EHR tool By Katie Adams Y ale New Haven (Conn.) Health partnered with New England Donor Services, the northeastern United States' organ procurement organization, to streamline the organ donation process, Harvard Business Review reported Dec. 13. Using a new EHR tool, the system sent 5,418 electronic organ donor referrals to New England Donor Services in 2020, saving 470 hours of nurses' time. The standard organ donation process begins when a caretaker of a patient who has died or is near death calls their regional organ procurement organization to conduct a screening to determine whether the patient can be a donor. The call takes 15 minutes on average. New England Donor Services developed a tool that automates organ donor referrals by sending a message with the information needed for the initial screening. The message is sent directly in the EHR, and a message is sent to the hospital to notify their care team whether the patient has potential to donate organs. The mes- sages are sent using the Health Level Seven Interna- tional information exchange protocol, the report said. Yale New Haven Health tested the tool for eight weeks in 2020 at three critical care floors in its flagship hospital. Originally, the system planned to roll out the tool grad- ually over the next few years; however, Yale New Haven Health immediately deployed the tool systemwide after seeing how much of nurses' time was saved during the pilot, the report said. Two other New England health systems, Beth Israel La- hey Health and Cambridge Health Alliance, both based in Cambridge, Mass., have deployed the tool since Yale New Haven Health's pilot. n 3 CNOs weigh in on nursing industry's biggest challenge in 2022 By Gabrielle Masson T he problems rooted in a nationwide nursing shortage, including its effect on patient care and safety, is the top concern of three nurse leaders. Becker's asked three chief nursing officers what the industry's one big- gest challenge would be heading into 2022. Below are their answers. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for brevity. Sara Kollman, DNP. CNO at Kaiser Permanente (Aurora, Colo.): The public health emergency of insufficient and unavail- able nursing workforce (COVID-19 impact, the Great Resignation and other root causes). Again, this is an emerging public health emergency and requires an urgent national call to action. Scott Lethi, BSN. CNO at Cookeville (Tenn.) Regional Medi- cal Center: The largest challenges we will be facing in 2022 for nursing is staffing among higher patient acuities while maintain- ing excellence in care. The candidate pool has shrunk, especially among those with experience. Unless something is done about the extreme rates for contract labor, the cycle will continue to self-perpetuate vacancies and communities' brain drain: staff departing for higher compensation without dedication to a home community. The model is not sustainable, and difficult decisions around capacity and services will need to be made for those organizations that cannot continue or choose not to continue to support the exceptional rates being charged for interim staff. This will, in turn, negatively impact emergency departments' and organizations' abilities to invest in items for patient care — espe- cially those organizations that may have had to reduce capacity for staffing and financial reasons. Rhonda Thompson, DNP, RN. CNO and Senior Vice Presi- dent of Patient Care Services at Phoenix Children's Hospital: The nursing shortage affecting health systems nationwide will continue to be a challenge in 2022. This has a greater impact than just unfilled positions and scheduling sufficient nurses based on a high patient census. It also means our experienced staff nurses are investing a great deal of time onboarding and training newly li- censed nurses, in addition to their own daily bedside care respon- sibilities. To solve this, it will take collaboration and commitment from our health systems, staff and academic partners. I have the privilege of working for an organization committed to being part of the solution. Internally, our solutions include creative staffing models designed to prevent burnout and offer work/life balance. We believe setting nurses up for a good first year in the workforce actually starts at the academic level, which is why, externally, we have strong partnerships with our academic colleagues to grow and develop the next generation of nurses. n