Becker's Hospital Review

78 CMO / CARE DELIVERY New Saint Vincent Hospital nursing chief strives for fresh start after 300+ day strike By Kelly Gooch T he new chief nursing officer of Saint Vin- cent Hospital in Worcester, Mass., is taking a "clean slate" approach in the wake of a strike that lasted more than 300 days and became the longest nurses strike in Massachusetts history, according to the Telegram & Gazette. Jay Prosser, DNP, RN, was appointed CNO of Saint Vincent in January aer serving in the role on an interim basis since November 2021. He took on the permanent CNO role the same month that nurses represented by the Massachu- setts Nurses Association voted to ratify a new contract, officially ending the strike. While he acknowledges the strike is still on the minds of workers at the hospital, Dr. Prosser said he is committed to a fresh start, according to the Telegram & Gazette. "For me this is a clean slate. Minus whatever strug- gles may have been here, real or perceived, I have a clean slate, and everybody here has a clean slate," he told the newspaper. "My arms are wide open to welcome these nurses back and say, 'Let's heal from whatever may be dividing us and move forward with a vision for this hospital.'" Nurses at Saint Vincent, part of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, began their strike March 8, 2021, and reached a tentative deal in December 2021 before approving a new contract Jan. 3. e agreement guarantees that nurses who went on strike can resume working in their previous positions, and returning nurses are now back at Saint Vincent. Dr. Prosser told the Telegram & Gazette that re- integrating the striking nurses with replacement nurses and nurses who crossed the picket line is among the challenges the hospital faces amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and he is focused on stabi- lizing staff, reengaging nurses and "building that positive culture of nursing care." Dr. Prosser previously served as the associate CNO for Brookwood Baptist Health in Birming- ham, Ala. He also spent more than a decade in various nursing leadership roles at Huntsville (Ala.) Hospital. n CMS delays star ratings update until July: 4 things to know By Mackenzie Bean C MS is postponing its next Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings update from April to July to fix a calculation error, the agency said Feb. 11, according to the American Hospital Association. Four things to know: 1. The error involved calculations using 2021 hospital data for the OP-10 outpatient imaging efficiency measure. 2. Hospitals do not need to submit any new data or complete additional ac- tions for the recalculation, and CMS said it doesn't expect the recalculation to affect 2022 payment determinations. 3. Hospitals will be able to preview their updated ratings this spring in their facility-specific reports, CMS said. 4. The agency is also delaying the public reporting of 2022 OP-10 measure results alongside the star ratings. "These measure results are for [calendar year] 2023 payment determination and were initially scheduled for preview release in spring 2022," the agency said. "CMS intends for the calculation error to be corrected in this and in future reporting of results for the OP-10 measure." n TikTok, MD By Molly Gamble S ocial media has been a hotbed of health falsehoods throughout the pandemic. That's why some physicians first flocked toward TikTok — and stayed. "Social-media users aren't necessarily the people you'd expect to provide clear and nuanced information about staying safe during a pandemic, but these doctors, nurses and academics are slowing the bleeding of trust that institutions have suffered over the past two years and informing a new gener- ation of news consumers," Christian Paz wrote for The Atlantic. Katrine Wallace, PhD, epidemiologist with University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, posted her first video in August 2020, when her account had 20 followers. Her debut was a minute-long explainer walking viewers through how COVID-19 death certificates are completed. In a few days, the video accumulated nearly 100,000 views. Today, Dr. Wallace (or @epidemiologistkat on TikTok) has nearly 250,000 followers with more vid- eos on COVID-19 testing, a breakdown of 'flurona's' threat and a series on the common techniques COVID-19 skeptics use to mislead. Like Dr. Wallace, many science communicators and medical professionals have gotten more organized on TikTok since spring and summer 2020 with a focus on educating viewers how to recognize traits of misinformation or how to scrutinize studies and data sets. There are also established platforms for these communi- cators to partner with, such as Team Halo, a United Nations–backed social-media campaign that enlisted scientists and healthcare professionals in late 2020 to ad- dress vaccine hesitancy and false information about the coronavirus. "By doing this, they hope they can pass on news- and information-consump- tion tactics that can apply to other topics, scientific or not, and skills that will stick with their audience long after the pandemic subsides," according to The Atlantic. n

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