Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

34 NURSING SPOTLIGHT 7 chief nursing officers on their most pressing issues By Cailey Gleeson H ospital and health system chief nursing officers are focusing on nurse well-being and workforce retention as they head into the end of 2022. Becker's asked seven CNOs what their most pressing issues are for the remainder of the year. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length. Ann Gantzer, PhD. Chief Nursing Officer at UW Health (Madison, Wis.) in Northern Illinois: As a CNO, I am most concerned about the well-being of our nurses. We expect a lot out of our care teams and our nurses. But the pandemic created a lot of strain on all of them. As we progress beyond the early COVID-19 surges we have seen expanding patient needs, many with particularly high acuity, at the same time we've experienced a national shortage of nurses and other clinical staff. As a health system, we need to meet the needs of our patients, but we also need to provide the support that our nursing staff needs. One of the things we've focused heavily on is recruiting and retaining talented nurses, which requires some creativity and innovation in this labor market. D'Andre Carpenter, DNP, RN. Enterprise Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President at UnityPoint Health (Des Moines, Iowa): At UnityPoint Health, we're advancing our labor strategy to support nurses in truly innovative and transformative ways. Our teams represent four generations of nurses, and traditional approaches to retention, recruitment and clinical effectiveness don't support the needs of a multigeneration workforce. We're creating a professional practice environment that reignites the passion for nursing, celebrates the expertise of our experienced team members, and supports new RNs in their transition to practice and with pathways for advancement. We're also focused an enterprise approach to nursing practice. Across the system, we're identifying best practices and aligning our approach to ensure clinical effectiveness. ese are critical initiatives for building a strong team of nurses, reducing dependency on contract labor, advancing quality and safety systems, and supporting the best outcomes for our patients. Denise Murphy, BSN, RN. Chief Nurse Officer at BJC HealthCare (St. Louis): Our patient care workforce challenges existed long before 2020, were only magnified by the pandemic, and, unfortunately, are not likely to be resolved soon. Recruitment and retention are our greatest priorities, which we are trying to address from multiple angles: people, tools and environment. On the people front, we must start recruiting long before college decisions are made, and reach communities where a college education seems out of reach. Offering students the vision of a career and a profession where they can support their families, by providing affordable or free education in exchange for a commitment to us, is a key strategy. We also must focus on retaining people by creating a culture that offers safety, high reliability and a true sense of belonging. We listen to feedback from our team members and they're telling us their priorities are work-life balance, compensation commensurate with the value they bring to their organizations and flexibility with the type of work they do and the hours they work. Additionally, younger team members want to advance quickly with concrete investments in their development and promotional opportunities. From a tools perspective, nurses need more support team members and virtual care delivery systems in a people-stretched environment. Virtual patient observers, better portable communication devices and in-the-moment flex shi scheduling apps are all part of the new workforce strategies we must employ. To create a thriving environment where caregivers want to stay means making it simpler because workload burden is one of the top reasons Nurses who want to leave the bedside turn to aesthetics By Erica Carbajal A esthetics is an attractive alternative for many nurses looking to leave the bedside in favor of better hours and less emotional toll, the Nashville Post reported Oct. 7. "You get to help people feel better in their skin," Danielle Maltby, BSN, RN, a former pediatric intensive care unit nurse who made the shift to aesthetics in 2019, told the news outlet. She was a NICU nurse for 12 years prior to making the switch. In aesthetics, "Typically, you're not working holidays, you're not working weekends," Ms. Matlby said. "You have a pretty nice nine-to-five job and you can go home and eat dinner at a normal time, you can go to bed at a normal time and live like a normal human." In July, Becker's heard from at least a dozen nurses who have taken on side hustles in hopes of reducing hours at the bedside or eventually developing a revenue stream large enough to leave hospital nursing altogether, including those who left the hospital setting to start their own aesthetics business. The Nashville Post cited research from McKinsey showing the global aesthetics injectables market is projected to grow 12 to 14 percent each year for the next five years. Sarah Allen, MD, founder and CEO Skin Clique, a medical concierge aesthetics practice that employs about 250 nurse practitioners and physician assistants across the U.S., said it took minimal recruiting effort to hire employees. Most nurses were eager to join, she told the news outlet. Despite growing interest in the field, there is not a universal training requirement for registered nurses interested in performing injections, and many clinics prefer to hire nurse practitioners, professionals in the aesthetics industry told the news outlet. n

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