Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

21 NURSING SPOTLIGHT How to keep staff informed without fear, per 1 CNO By Mariah Taylor For Shannon Christian, MSN, RN, ensuring her team has a realistic view of the current state of the industry is a top priority. "Transparency is crucial," she told Becker's. "My primary focus is always on our frontline manager team, ensuring they have all the appropriate information. Whether it's being invited to staff meetings or cascading information through huddles, we ensure the teams are well-informed. I'm always impressed with the amount of information our managers share with their teams during these huddles." Ms. Christian, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of patient care services at Lawrence + Memorial and Westerly (Conn.), said she worries about the financial pressures on healthcare and how it shapes services and care. She also is concerned that the team is not as aware of the situation as they should be. "I hope that it's temporary and due to current financial pressures and resource shortages," she told Becker's. "But I'm not sure our teams have a realistic view either, as they might not be keeping up with healthcare updates and news. It's my job to ensure they understand we're doing everything we can to provide the right services and resources for patient care." Ms. Christian said it's a delicate balance between helping staff understand the national picture without worrying them about their own hospital. But transparency and dedication to keeping teams informed have "absolutely" helped the hospital build its culture and keep nurses. "Focusing on frontline managers is key to building the right culture in clinical areas and retaining and recruiting nurses and other staff like nurse aides and techs," she said. "ey huddle daily, engage with their teams, and address issues promptly, making a palpable difference." n 'Aggressive nurse recruitment is growing,' 130+ nurse groups say By Paige Twenter T he International Council of Nurses, an organization of more than 130 national nurses associations, is warning about some high-income countries recruiting nurses from vulnerable countries with critical health worker shortages. "Despite shared ethical codes and calls to curb this practice, aggressive nurse recruitment is growing, with clear evidence of harmful impacts exacerbating deep- seated health inequalities worldwide," the International Council of Nurses said in a June 20 news release. The organization represents 28 million nurses worldwide, according to its website. The organization called on world leaders who are part of G20, an intergovernmental forum, to make nurse migration and this recruiting issue a priority at their November meeting. ICN President Pamela Cipriano, PhD, is advocating for a temporary freeze on recruiting nurses from countries with severe nursing shortages and fragile health systems. At the same time, the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment is asking Congress to safeguard unused green cards for nurses as the industry worries about a potential nurse visa freeze. The ICN did not name which high-income countries are engaging in unethical recruitment practices, but the organization called these strategies "unsustainable" and a "short-sighted solution." n perspectives and learned increased familiarity with virtual care made them more receptive to the virtual nursing program. In response to patients' privacy concerns that popped up in the first few weeks of the hybrid virtual nursing model, leaders tweaked the standard orientation to ensure staff communicate to patients that they are not being recorded, and to limit sensitive conversations to in- person interactions, said Dr. Carpenter, who is also vice president and chief nursing officer at UH MacDonald Women's & Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospitals. Initially, bedside nurses also shared concerns about having heavier workloads if a remote nurse was supporting them, but leaders have found "the trusting relationship between nurses from within the same team has helped with this hesitancy," she said. An established working relationship has enhanced the level of collaboration between the teams, who divide work based on the level of patient acuity and care needs that day. "e remote nurse has been especially beneficial in work such as dual verification of medications, safety monitoring, shared nurse worklists, and coordination between hospital and post-acute care facilities," Dr. Carpenter said. Based on the program's success so far, Ms. Hereford and Dr. Carpenter said University Hospitals plans to expand the hybrid model to night shis and introduce remote access for other healthcare team members. n

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