Becker's Hospital Review

28 CMO / CARE DELIVERY programs that we want to continue. We have a mental health first aid program. We have a new EAP program. We have a program called healing together: an introduction to mind body medicine. We have zen rooms and a variety of things like that across the system, and we realize that the reason we need to have a variety is because not everybody is the same. Different nurses and different people have different things that could help them with the difficulties of our work these days. One of the things we do that might be a little bit different is a program where we actually provide wellness for our employees in a way that they can take care of themselves and we reward them to do it. Within that self- care program called My Wellness, we have programs where people can learn about mindfulness, how to build resilience, how to manage pain, and virtual fitness and nutrition classes — those sorts of things. When we talk about resilience, it's also about your employees' health. We have them sign up for this program if they want to, and they get rewarded with points that are worth something. ey can turn them in for things they can buy or cash. It's one way to help people take care of themselves because an issue with nursing is that when we offer a variety of programs like this, not all of [the nurses] feel that they have the time because the majority are women who have a lot of responsibilities at home, and they oen don't take care of themselves. So this is one of our ways to say, "OK, we are offering all of this, but guess what? We're also going to reward you for taking care of yourself because we think it's that important." Q: Are there any other significant changes or improvements to the nursing workforce you're hoping to see in 2023? KS: We asked our nurses last year what it is they wanted — a list of all the things that would make work even more rewarding or less stressful. And they gave us a long list, so this year we went market by market and had about 200 nurses give us input in our focus group as to what they wanted [to prioritize.] What I tell people is look at this long list because these are all the things that we want to do — and we intend to do them all — but we can't do them all at once, so we have to figure out what's most important. ese are the top four that they told us: 1. Shared governance throughout the entire U.S. — a formal shared governance program where they know nurses have a voice in everything that affects them. 2. A program for personal growth. ey would like it to be about them as individuals. Not everyone is going to stay at the bedside for 40 years and there are so many different jobs that nurses can do, but nurses don't always know what those are, how to change or get the education and certifications they would need to change. ey're asking us for some help in personal growth surrounding how they can make decisions about their careers. 3. Closer academic partnerships. Nurses realize that if we're going to have great teams, we have to have more people on the teams. We have a couple really strong academic partnerships in our various markets and we're working on some others to make nationally. We're working with [Atlanta-based] Morehouse School of Medicine and [Los Angeles-based Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in California to increase diversity in nursing, and we have several others that we are talking to right now. 4. A continuation of wellness, health and resilience. Wellness and resilience isn't a pillar by itself; all of these other things [above] matter. e things that nurses are telling us they want lead to resilience. A class about resilience, burnout — it's all very helpful, but root cause needs to be looked at. So the other three things nurses are telling us they want will support resilience, as well as our efforts with the residency program, virtual nursing and the ability to do things like travel. n Most physicians question NPs' care decisions, survey finds By Mackenzie Bean N early 80 percent of physicians say they occasionally or regularly question a nurse practitioner's treatment decisions, according to Medscape's Evolving Scope of Practice Report published Nov. 29. For the report, Medscape surveyed 750 professionally active U.S. physicians in more than 28 specialties between June 6 and Aug. 9. Five survey findings: 1. Fifty percent of physicians said they occasionally question an NP's treatment decisions, while 29 percent said they often do. 2. Physicians shared similar responses when asked about physician assistants. Fifty-four percent said they occasionally questioned a PA's care decisions, and 26 percent said they often do. 3. Overall, most physicians said they were satisfied with PAs and NPs' patient interactions at 74 percent and 71 percent, respectively. 4. However, 23 percent of physicians said expanding PAs' treatment abilities would be generally negative for patient care. Thirty-four percent of physicians said the same for expanding NPs' scope of practice. 5. Sixty-one percent said states should not expand PAs' scope of practice, and 69 percent said the same for NPs. n

• Cover