HJAR Mar/Apr 2020

20 MAR / APR 2020 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   NURSING ROUNDTABLE Ray Staffing has always been a challenge in all aspects of health care. For nursing, we must now look not only at the number of nurses entering and leaving the profession, but also pay attention to the growing experi- ence gap. Nurses are retiring across the in- dustry. The number of new graduates helps combat the vacancy rate, but it is challenging to replace the decades of experience we are losing. We need to creatively explore what it takes to keep mid-career nurses active in direct patient care, because the demand for nurses is going to continue to climb. The risk of burnout and compassion fa- tigue is a concern for nursing, as well as all other health care professions. We are learn- ing more and more about risk factors such as the complexity of patient care demands, and the ever-changing health care industry. We need to better understand the causes of burnout, and provide resources needed to address this emerging concern for our teams. Williams There remain challenges with RN shortages, and that impacts nursing. I do feel like the work we can do around self-care, and celebrating these nurses that have dedicated their lives to caring for others will help over- come some of the challenges we face with having enough nurses to work at the bedside. How do you pursue quality throughout the nursing system in your organiza- tion? Brackeen I pursue quality by making it about the patient. I believe that leaders must model the behaviors they want to see in others. Any time I talk to staff about quality or perfor- mance improvement, I consistently focus how the issue impacts the patient. We seek to decrease serious safety events in our hos- pital because, who gets hurt by such events? The patient. We work diligently to reduce falls with injury or hospital-acquired infections in our hospital to protect the patient. We constantly evaluate our care practices and process, compile data about these practices and process, and then report this informa- tion throughout the organization to make thembetter for the patient. I do not have time for quality measures that can’t be linked to a patient outcome in some fashion, nor can I create buy-in from staff if they can’t see the relationship to the patient. Diedrich At Baptist Health, we strive to pro- vide the best quality of care for our patients, and nursing is vital in this effort. Through the nursing division, we have shared governance councils, which are populated by the nurses providing care to our patients. These councils talk about quality issues we can impact with the development of a plan to address any issues. We also have a daily safety huddle to share information and discuss any qual- ity issues that have arisen, or may arise. We empower nursing coworkers to share any