Category: Blog

What Nurses Want for the Future of Healthcare

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program began in 2021, and since the launch, we’ve been able to highlight the incredible work, determination, and selflessness of hundreds of nurses. This year, we asked many of these nurses what they long for in their careers—the changes they believe are needed to strengthen the nursing profession. These nurses shared their thoughts and experiences with us, opening up about what they want for the future of healthcare and the nursing field. We’ve broken their feedback down into some of the major areas where nurses want to see growth, adaptation, and overall change.

A Seat at The Table

Since the dawn of the pandemic, the vital role that nurses play in healthcare has only become more evident. From facing extensive burnout to working double shifts to sacrificing their own health by healing others with little to no personal protective equipment (PPE), nurses have had their fair share of challenges in the past nearly three years. But these challenges seemingly brought on by the pandemic were actually just magnified by its presence—complications and problems like these existed well before COVID-19 did. 

Finding solutions to the above problems is a big conversation, and unfortunately, decisions about policies and procedures seem to be made far too often without nurses in the room. Commitments and recommendations related to things like scheduling, case numbers, PPE, staffing issues, and even some broader healthcare policies are not informed often enough by nurses’ experience and opinions. Rather, these important decisions are frequently made by other parties and nurses are told after the fact, meaning the people who they often affect most have little to no say in the decision-making process. 

This is why many nurses we spoke to said they want their profession to be given a bigger seat at the table. Of the 13 nurses we’ve profiled as part of the 2022 Nurses of Note program, almost all of them said they’d like to be more involved in the decision-making process. Dina Bressler, a nurse at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, started this conversation.

“I would love to see nurses having a larger role in the executive decisions in healthcare. While the healthcare system and nursing field is constantly evolving, and we’ve come a long way, there is still a lot of positive change that can happen, and I believe that nurses can and should be a part of that.” 

Nurses are passionate about caring for their patients—it’s a unifying drive that steers the course of care in every nurse’s job. But not all nurses get to share their opinions on care delivery, and that’s something Tracy Zeigler, Nurse Informaticist at Mecklenburg County Public Health, wants to change. 

“I would like to see nurses more empowered to develop plans of care for their patients that align with nursing science and the art of healing.”

Julie Moreton, Nurse Navigator and Staff Educator at Prisma Health’s Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorder department, agreed. The professional decision-making process for patient care initiatives and best practices should include those who are directly involved with care. 

“I would also love for nurses to eventually have the energy and motivation again to engage in professional development and quality initiatives when they aren’t so burned out from the pandemic.”

Quality initiatives aren’t just important for the patients that nurses treat. Meghan Walter, Senior Manager of Clinical Professional Development at Northern Westchester Hospital, wants nurses’ voices to be heard when it comes to policies that touch everyone impacted by the care process, including the families of loved ones, administrative staff, and others. 

Because care is at the heart of every nurse’s role, it makes sense that nurses want to lead the charge in establishing equitable care for all. Toby Bressler, Senior Director of Nursing for Oncology at Mount Sinai Health System, elaborated. 

“In the near future, I would like to see the development of a nursing agenda that will advance and close the gaps of health equity and social justice. In particular, I would like to see full practice authority for advanced practice nurses in every state across the United States. We aren’t doing ourselves or our patients any favors with restrictive practice barriers.”

Beverly Felton, Public Health Director at Little Axe Health Clinic in Norman, OK, is also passionate about equity and representation for nurses themselves. Policies and procedures improve when more voices are heard and respected, including those of minorities and other underrepresented nursing populations. Beverly had a lot to say about this topic in her profile, so be sure to read more here.

“Another thing I see is the difference in the way we’re treated as minorities. In nursing school, I was treated differently than the other students because I was Native, and my other fellow students were white. We need to treat all students with respect, no matter their culture or heritage or ethnicity.”

Adequate Resources

Along with having a seat at the table, nurses want to be properly supported with adequate resources. This means they want to have adequate staffing numbers to support high-quality care regardless of patient load. They also want better access to updated technology that enhances and streamlines clinical workflows. These resources make a difference in both the quality of care nurses give and the experience they have coming to work every day.

Leigh Barnhill, Nurse Informaticist at Mecklenburg County Public Health, spoke to the topic of staffing. She wants more nurses who are passionate about care to fill open nursing positions. Robert Mangold, Chief Operations Officer at Logan County Health Services, also spoke to this point. Both mentioned adequate nurse-to-patient ratios, which have been hard to come by since the beginning  of the pandemic. According to a study done by the National Library of Medicine, the number of patients per ICU nurse increased by 30% during the months April and May in 2020 compared to the same two-month period in 2019.1 The same study found that, in April of 2020, some ICU nurses took care of up to five patients per shift, which is “more than double the maximum of two patients per nurse as stated by the Dutch Guidelines for Intensive Care.”2

Robin Gadd-Lane, Manager of Digital Health and Transformation Systems at Prisma Health, wants to see nurses more involved with technology and the decisions surrounding what technology is used. As someone who works to enhance nursing staff workflows through IT connections, Robin sees great value in nurses having more autonomy over the technology they use. 

“I would like to see nursing take a bigger role in technology. Healthcare lags behind other industries when it comes to technology, and this creates increased challenges to bring about change to the complex workflows in healthcare. Nursing is typically a central part of those workflows, and they are key to that change. The nurse’s perspective is needed to help bridge that gap between technology and healthcare.”

Better Pay

It’s often said that nurses work on the “front lines” of healthcare, an endearing reference that really picked up steam during the height of the pandemic. But despite the critical nature of their role, a survey by Nurse.com found that 46% of nurses are only somewhat satisfied with their salaries.5 Taleba Morrison, Nurse Informaticist at Mecklenburg County Public Health, alluded to nurses deserving higher pay when she was asked what she wanted for the future of healthcare. Though she didn’t mention pay specifically, she references that the nurse shortage is taxing for those currently in the field. She thinks higher salaries would encourage more nurses to continue doing what they love. 

“I believe nurses would be happier with a more balanced workload. I also want to see a decrease in the levels of nursing shortages and for the profession to be respected and more highly regarded overall.” 

Adding to this need, Amanda Harvan, Lead Advanced Practice Provider at Summa Health System, expressed an opinion similar to Taleba’s.

“We need a lot of things, but the main three are better staffing, higher pay, and a greater level of respect for nurses and nurses’ aides and assistants. They are just as much a part of the care team as nurses are.”

Julie Moreton also spoke on staffing and pay and believes better pay and staffing will give the healthcare industry the boost it needs to help job retention levels. According to the 2022 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report, hospitals are experiencing far too many RN vacancies. The vacancy rate of 17.1% in 2022 is up 7.1% from last year, and over 80% of hospitals in the survey reported a vacancy rate of over 10%.3 What’s more, the turnover rate of staff RNs increased by 8.4% and currently stands at 27.1%. Because the average cost of turnover for a bedside RN is $46,100, this issue costs the average hospital anywhere from $5.2 million to $9.0 million per year.4

“I would love to see nurses receive fair wages and staffing across the country to help with retention. Some organizations really have nurse retention as a focus and you can tell by how they treat their nursing staff,” Moreton said.

Opportunity and Education

Nurses also want more opportunities for growth and education in the future. Though there are varying levels of education and certifications available to nurses, many want to see greater opportunities inside of their current career paths. Others want to see educational opportunities at the beginning of the nursing journey. Chris Morgan, QAQI/Risk Management Director at Community Health and Emergency Services in Southern Illinois, believes there should even be a compassion or empathy exam before entering nursing school.

“For future generations, I think there needs to be some sort of compassion and/or empathy entry exam for nursing school. Some people get into this field simply as a career choice, but it is so much more. If you don’t care about people, you should not be a nurse.”

Ana Tyrkala, Clinical Practice Specialist at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, envisions education and career growth opportunities intertwined with technology. Ana’s job is to put improvement methodologies in place to enhance processes and make best practice changes, so she deeply values the opportunity for others to get further education to grow their careers.

On a slightly different side of the education coin is Beverly Felton, who wants to change the mindset of educational levels in nursing to increase respect and inclusivity. Her wisdom leans more toward valuing nurses for the work they do and the way they change patients’ lives rather than focusing exclusively on credentials.

“We need to get away from the mindset of who we think we need to be or who need to become. I have worked with some nurses who think they are not good enough because they were ‘only’ an LPN, or they were better than everyone else because they had a master’s degree in nursing when the rest of us were ‘only’ ADN nurses. We are all nurses and should treat each other with respect. It should not matter what initials are at the back of your name—as long as you pass your exams, you are still a nurse.”

The incredible—and demanding—services that nurses provide across the healthcare industry are always expanding. As we learned from the nurses we spoke to, their first-hand experiences give them unique insight into improvements that can be made to build better standards and processes for the healthcare system of the future.

Because nurses play such a heavy role in the healthcare ecosystem, most want to see changes in their profession that will lead to more representation and higher satisfaction levels in their careers. Nurses want a seat at the table for policy and decision-making, better resources for themselves and for their patients, pay that more accurately reflects the workload they handle, and greater opportunity to grow in their careers. Listening to the voices of nurses is the next and most important step to creating a better, more equitable field for nurses everywhere.

Thank You

To these Nurses of Note, thank you for sharing your passions and thoughts with us. We’re honored to highlight the work you do, and we look forward to another round of the Nurses of Note program in 2023!

Make sure to follow our Nurse of Note blogs as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year. For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.

 

 

1,2 The impact of COVID-19 on nursing workload and planning of nursing staff on the Intensive Care: A prospective descriptive multicenter study, National Library of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215878/

3,4 2022 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report, NSI Nursing Solutions: https://www.nsinursingsolutions.com/Documents/Library/NSI_National_Health_Care_Retention_Report.pdf

5 Are you satisfied? Pay raises and promotions rank high for nurses, Nurse.com: https://resources.nurse.com/pay-raises-and-promotions-rank-high-for nurses#:~:text=The%20Nurse.com%20survey%20reveals,very%20satisfied%20with%20their%20salaries.

How to Improve Patient Experiences and Reduce Healthcare Costs

Communication gaps can lead to negative outcomes for patients. When healthcare organizations consider the patient journey as a whole, they can reduce healthcare costs for both their clinics and patients. Fast, effective, and reliable communication often leads to a more seamless and positive care experience for both clinical staff and their patients.

A Patient Experience Story

A 57-year-old single patient named Nancy sees a new physician with complaints of painful breathing. The doctor finds adult-onset asthma to be the cause of her symptoms, prescribes an inhaler, and refers her to a free-standing imaging center for a chest X-ray.

As the day moves to night, Nancy feels her condition is worsening. She continues to have trouble breathing, and an unproductive cough develops. She calls her physician’s office after hours, but the office voicemail provides no guidance other than recommending the hospital emergency department (ED). Nancy is frantic and calls her daughter, who suggests she call 911. An ambulance arrives and rushes her to the nearest ED.

Nancy is triaged in the overcrowded ED and is put in a hallway. Her ED care team has no access to her primary care physician’s notes or the free-standing imaging report. The doctor orders a repeat X-ray and gives her another nebulizer treatment. Imaging is backed up, but after a delay, Nancy has the scan and returns to the hallway. As they wait for the results, Nancy’s condition deteriorates, and she begins spitting up blood.

The ED nurse makes multiple requests for the imaging results, and while they are waiting, the ED care team is pulled away to handle other priority patients. Meanwhile, Nancy’s daughter has been calling the ED to find out her mother’s condition, wondering whether it’s necessary to come in or not. Does her daughter make the two-hour drive to the hospital?

When the report finally arrives, the care team is not notified and only sees the results when they next open Nancy’s chart. Finally, the care team reviews the imaging results that reveal diffuse pulmonary nodules. The ED physician flags the asthma diagnosis as suspect and admits the patient for observation and additional blood tests. Nancy is now stuck in the hallway, waiting for an open bed. She is concerned, confused, and not sure what to do next.

Communication Breakdowns Increase Costs and Negatively Impact Patients

Care coordination gaps and delays similar to those experienced by Nancy are common. But the risk is higher when clinics fax reports, use pagers, or don’t have reliable processes for out-of-network communications.1

In the above case, lengthy and unpredictable communication cycles made it difficult for the ED care team and patient to make timely decisions, impacting both quality of care and patient safety. They led Nancy to call 911, followed by a potentially preventable ambulance ride, ED visit, and inpatient admission that all placed more demands on scarce—and costly—resources. With little to go on, the hospital team ordered duplicate tests, exposing Nancy to unnecessary excess radiation and duplicate treatment. Through the many delays, her condition worsened. The entire process was an unfortunate experience for the patient and her family—they’re anxious, tired, and frustrated.

Equipping patients and care teams with the right information at the right time—whether it’s about their diagnosis, the logistics of their treatment, resources available to them, or something else entirely—can improve the care experience and outcomes by removing as much confusion and ambiguity as possible.

Providers across the board struggle with the communication gaps that hindered Nancy’s care in the above story. With better communication solutions, these gaps can be mitigated, and the problems that providers and patients face can be avoided. The chart below highlights some of the gaps providers, patients, and patient families commonly face and how better solutions can alleviate their impact:

Clinical Communication Gap

The Right Tools Elevate The Patient Experience

PerfectServe’s clinical communication and patient engagement solutions are built to equip all members of the care team—including the patient and their family members or loved ones—with the right information at the right time to make the best care decisions. When you remove communication delays and other obstacles to allow for effective, efficient care delivery, you create a better experience for patients and providers alike.

With the introductory story mentioned above, how do you think the situation could be improved? Have you ever been in a similar situation? We always appreciate the chance to learn from firsthand experiences.

Schedule a demo to share your story and learn how PerfectServe might be the right fit for your organization’s needs.

Schedule a Demo

 

1 Effects of Poor Communication in Healthcare. HIPAA Journal. https://www.hipaajournal.com/effects-of-poor-communication-in-healthcare/

Hospital Call Center Software: How to Solve the Top 3 Issues

Hospital Call Center Software – Why is it Valuable?

Hospital call center software is a valuable part of the facility’s communication ecosystem. It’s what connects the entire care team, including physicians, nurses, administrators, technicians, and even patients. Call center software automates the ebb and flow of incoming and outgoing calls, and in a healthcare setting, the call center is often where calls and code messages are born—its importance cannot be overstated. 

Call center technology has come a long way in the healthcare space, and the modernization of available software has vastly improved how call centers service patients and providers alike. For a long time, this technology existed only in the form of hard-to-maintain, on-premise solutions, but it has evolved into a more modern, cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) form. Even with this evolution, many hospitals and healthcare systems still use multiple (often incompatible) tools for contact inquiries. This leads to lost messages, increased call duration, stale contact information, frustrated providers and patients, and a lack of insight that often means it’s impossible to tell when and if messages have been read or received. There is much room for improvement with these processes, particularly with a single, integrated platform that eliminates siloes by housing all clinical communication.

Common Issues with Healthcare Call Center Software

With that context in place, we can look at the risks posed when communication is inhibited by inefficient technology. Let’s look at the top three issues with today’s hospital call center software: 

  1. Legacy Call Center Technology: Many hospitals and healthcare systems still have on-premise solutions, which may not easily integrate with existing directories, scheduling solutions, patient records, and texting/messaging software. As a result, hospital call center staff have to log into multiple systems to resolve queries and manually connect people, leading to inefficient workflows, workarounds, and message loss. Legacy call center technology can also lead to significant IT costs for overlapping services due to siloed deployments, acquisitions, mergers, and software preferences. Further, the on-premise nature of this dated call center technology brings several drawbacks: facilities have to make space for physical hardware, updates can only happen manually, and connectivity problems can occur with power outages.
  2. Message Reliability: Call center operators and care team members sometimes lack the tools needed to know if a message has been successfully sent, delivered, or read. This leads to delays in care and potential oversight issues. Operators and care team members should be able to get instant feedback on the messages they send and receive, as well as updates on when these messages are answered and by whom. Message auditing is crucial for resource management and throughout the entire care process.
  3. Clinician Scheduling: Clinicians can be hard to track, especially in an environment with an ongoing pandemic as a backdrop. Operators need to be able to handle inbound patient and clinician calls without manually looking up on-call schedules and location-specific contact information for clinicians who may be located at a specific hospital, outpatient clinic, or other patient facility. Paper schedules and call center code charts quickly become outdated, inhibiting care team collaboration and slowing down the entire care process.

Benefits of Modern, HIPAA-Compliant Call Center Software

With updated call center software comes modern technology benefits. Let’s look at some of the ways modern call center solutions solve long-standing clinical collaboration problems:

  1. Seamless Integrations: Modern call center technology that integrates with new and existing clinical communication software enhances speed to care. Call center solutions that integrate with scheduling software, EHR records, and contact directories (among other technologies) allow for improved efficiency and cost reduction. These integrations save a health system time and money while making the lives of call center staff easier and more focused. 
  2. Cloud-Based Technology: With a cloud-based delivery model, call center technology can be installed, repaired, rerouted, and updated from anywhere. This eliminates hardware-bound, on-premise downloads and hardware, greatly reducing the burden on IT staff. Further, if one location within a health system experiences a power outage, cloud-based call center technology gives them the ability to route calls for that facility to any operator on the platform, regardless of their location. This alleviates costly delays and ensures calls continue to get routed to the right provider in a timely manner. While legacy systems often have a physical server, cloud-based systems only require operators to have access to computers and headsets.
  3. Automated, Real-Time Notifications: Support for two-way communication via secure text or voice is a necessary and beneficial component of modern call center solutions. Automated escalations ensure that every message is delivered to the right place to be properly actioned, and with the right communication platform, you can also gain access to analytics and other valuable insight about call types and message flows to improve resource management.
  4. Real-Time Scheduling Workflows: Modern call center solutions provide flexibility that improves collaboration for providers. Some legacy call center solutions require manually written, paper-based schedules and code charts for reference. Newer call center solutions integrate into existing schedules, allowing for real-time escalation and call rerouting. Providers often have busy schedules that change frequently, and due to limited integration capabilities, on-premise call center solutions usually require staff to manually track down busy care team members. A solution that can integrate with scheduling software eliminates on-call confusion, automatically updates and reroutes calls, and speeds up care delivery.

Improving Communication Improves Care

Removing technology silos and connecting all existing communication channels improves care team collaboration. Historically, on-premise hospital call center software has been difficult or impossible to integrate with third-party paging or texting solutions, which greatly limits overall functionality and does not support the consumerization and digitization of care. Cloud-based call center solutions have changed the rules of the game by being flexible and location-agnostic while supporting easy integrations that facilitate much-needed vendor consolidation.

PerfectServe offers a range of solutions that enhance two-way communication and collaboration across the care team. Our cloud-based healthcare call center software is reliable and agent-focused, offering the scalability needed to expand during peak operation times. It sits within a broader communication and provider scheduling ecosystem that ensures HIPAA-compliant calls, automated updates and upgrades, reduced IT burden, integrated schedules, virtual call queues, powerful search queries, and so much more.

Schedule a Demo Today

By modernizing your call center, you’re improving your organization’s digital front door and building the foundation for better care team collaboration. Schedule a demo today to learn more about PerfectServe’s healthcare call center solution!

Nurses of Note Awards 2022: The Senior Manager of Clinical Professional Development

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program honors nurses who deserve recognition for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their patients. In the second year of the Nurses of Note program, PerfectServe wants to shine a light on the integrity, perseverance, and compassion that nurses so regularly display in the course of caring for patients.

The incredible stories of these honorees paint a clear picture of the individuals who populate this noble profession, and their experiences offer just a glimpse into the many ways they make the world a better place. Of the 200-plus nominations PerfectServe received, we selected a group of providers to spotlight throughout the year.

August of 2022 holds many holidays and awareness dates that pertain to childhood illnesses and health: Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month, Children’s Vision and Learning Month, National Breastfeeding Month, and National Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Month—just to name a few. In honor of the way this month brings many important issues to the forefront, we chose to profile a nurse who works directly or partially in pediatrics.

Honoree 7: The Senior Manager of Clinical Professional Development at Northern Westchester Hospital (Mount Kisco, NY) — Meghan Walter

Meghan Walter is the Senior Manager of Clinical Professional Development at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, NY. Part of Northwell Health, Northern Westchester Hospital specializes in cancer care, orthopedic and spine conditions, and maternity services. Meghan’s role as an educator makes her job especially important for the emergency department and the behavioral health, short stay, and pediatrics units. That’s a lot of hats to wear, but Meghan doesn’t mind.

Meghan knew she wanted to pursue a career in nursing in high school. Her father became ill and was hospitalized, and she saw first hand how the ICU nurses took care of both her father and her family. She was instantly inspired, and this experience put her on a trajectory to become a registered nurse in New York. She began her career as a telemetry and emergency department care nurse before she obtained her master’s degree in education. She later took on the role of Clinical Professional Development Educator, and though she does not care for patients directly at this time, her educational role is instrumental in teaching others at the hospital how to provide better care.

As a clinical educator, Meghan cited the Association of Nursing Professional Development to describe the purpose of her role, which is to “advance quality healthcare by defining and promoting professional  development practices.” In other words, her goal is to be an advocate and a leading resource for nursing professionals and their development practice. Meghan oversees orientations and fellowships, mentors nurses, partners with academic organizations for educational tools, and advocates for the spirit of inquiry through knowledge acquisition and development. Meghan says her role helps nurses by promoting lifelong learning that will, in turn, provide an environment for safe practices at the bedside for patients. 

Part of Meghan’s job is to create new training programs for the nursing staff at Northern Westchester Hospital. In one of these programs, Meghan taught new emergency department nurses how to use evidence-based practices in learning about new equipment. The nurses had to video the use of the latest equipment and upload these videos to an educational YouTube channel. They then printed out QR codes for easy access to the educational sessions. These videos helped other nurses and care team members quickly access video resources when operating new equipment, ensuring the entire team—regardless of department—would be better prepared to do their jobs.

Meghan also creates podcasts to disseminate information to the entire staff. Some of the podcast topics include hypertensive crisis in pregnancy, stroke, neurocritical care, surgical procedures, and more. Meghan says this is especially helpful for auditory learners, who can hear from the doctors and nurses themselves about a variety of topics. Alongside podcasts, Meghan’s team created the “Collaborative Care Connection: Improving Teamwork and Patient Safety with a Sustainable, Patient-Centered Bedside Hand-Off” poster. This staff-led project was developed to incorporate patient and best practice information into a report. Meghan assisted the team by finding research articles that supported their findings, eventually instilling multiple process changes to ensure frontline nursing staff had all the tools needed to facilitate proper patient handoffs at the bedside. As a reward for their efforts, her team was chosen to present these findings to other nurses at the Sigma Theta Tau Creating Healthy Work Environments Conference in Washington, D.C., in 2021.

Meghan’s educational role is what led her to become involved with pediatrics. In the emergency department, Meghan always had a special fondness for pediatric patients. When she stepped into her educational role, she was able to visit her hospital system’s children’s hospital to learn from and educate nurses there. On one particular trip, she learned about Northwell’s BEEMindful Program, which assesses children with neurobehavioral disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, ADD, and ADHD. The program allows providers to cluster their care and communicate with patients in a way that ensures maximum learning and understanding. Realizing her community hospital did not have a program like this, Meghan worked with a multidisciplinary team to develop sensory carts and education for all staff to identify and communicate with this population. The carts had hospital-grade diversionary activities and communication devices to ensure staff were able to provide person-centered care to pediatric patients with sensory needs. Everyone who volunteered to participate in the program did so because they had a loved one in their life with sensory needs.

But Meghan’s work in pediatrics doesn’t stop there. She once made a presentation to the Northwell Pediatric Service Line on the care of a “safe haven” infant. In New York, safe haven infants are babies up to 30 days old who are dropped off at local hospitals, EMS sites, and police and fire stations. Though the occurrence is rare, and there are policies in place related to these instances, Meghan realized there was very little guidance about which medical tests and treatments should be administered on safe haven infants who appear healthy. She worked with a team to create care guidelines, ensuring there are concrete best practices in place when and if one of these patients presents at their facility.

To say the least, Meghan is an extremely valuable member of the team at Northern Westchester Hospital. We at PerfectServe are inspired by her determination, leadership, and commitment to spreading knowledge. Her nominator wrote that Meghan “truly embodies what it means to be a dedicated resource, bedside nurse, advocate, and educator, and has improved the practice of all she encounters.” We couldn’t agree more!

Thank You

Meghan, your devotion to the continuing education of nurses and other care team members is admirable. PerfectServe is honored to highlight the work you do for Northern Westchester Hospital and for the nursing community at large. Thanks to you and the rest of your team for the impactful work you do every day!

Q&A

In addition to learning about Meghan’s role, we posed some additional questions to get to know her a bit better.

Why did you choose to become a nurse?
I always wanted to be in the medical field but initially thought I wanted to be a physician. I was a volunteer at my local Emergency Medical Service agency as an emergency medical technician. When I was a senior in high school, my father became ill and was hospitalized. It was the intensive care nurses that truly made my father and family feel comforted during that time. At that moment, I knew nursing was the right fit for me.

What is the biggest lesson you learned while serving as a nurse throughout the pandemic?
I learned how effective communication and resource allocation is the key to overcoming almost everything. This was so with the healthcare team, as we had staff pitch in from all hospital areas throughout COVID-19. We also had to learn to communicate about all of the changing diagnostics and treatments. It was also super important to keep families in the loop as much as possible. It was a scary time! We went from a hospital with 24/7 visitation to no visitation at all. We embraced technology and worked to connect patients with their families.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self about working in healthcare?
Nursing is a hard profession—mentally, physically, and emotionally. But there are times when you can see you truly made a difference for one person, and that is the best experience ever. Be sure to hold onto that feeling, especially during the most difficult times.

What do you do to relax after a stressful day?
After a stressful day, I regenerate and recharge by spending time with friends and family. I have a particular friend I call who helps me to destress on my way home. I also love reading. The last (non-nursing) book I read was “Rock Paper Scissors” by Alice Feeney. I love psychological thrillers.

What changes would you like to see in the nursing field in the future?
I would love to see the nursing profession continue to remain one of the top most-trusted professions. I also feel it is extremely valuable for nurses to spearhead healthcare policy and research and to be at the table with our physician partners and the interprofessional team. Teamwork and collaboration create successful outcomes for patients and families!

If you had to pick one song to describe you as a nurse, what would it be?
“I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts. As an educator and nurse, I feel this song best describes what I do—I’m there for the team.

Make sure to follow our blog as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year.

For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.

How Team Based Care Works with Primary Care Patients

Team Based Care with a Patient and Multiple Specialists

Does your medical communication involve your patient’s other healthcare experts to provide team-based care? For various reasons, patients often seek treatment from different healthcare specialists, and you may not be aware of all of them.

For example, if a patient had oral surgery and was prescribed a strong painkiller that made them feel sick, they would most likely go to their primary care physician for answers. Certain painkillers and medications may have side effects that impact one’s mental health and can leave a patient feeling depressed. If that were the case, they may want to talk to a psychiatrist. 

This is why physician-led team-based care is an important strategy. It enables health care practitioners to create the most effective and efficient solutions for the patient. Let’s look at how team-based care approaches are used, while exploring ideas for your medical organization.

What is Team Based Care?

‘Team-based care’ is a method of connecting multiple healthcare providers in order to meet a patient’s needs by utilizing collaborative communication. Nurses and advanced practitioners lay the foundation for this value-based care by providing necessary communication between different practices and hospitals. 

A patient’s primary care provider can communicate with their cardiologist if they’re experiencing chest pain and need to be admitted to the hospital, but it’s  usually nurses who tend to be on the front line of this medical communication. They bridge the gap between specialists. Medical assistants often step in and fill this gap for physicians too, giving time back to doctors so they can focus on patient care needs while unloading some of their more administrative tasks.

Team Based Primary Care Approaches

The Old Care Model

Clinical patient treatment has traditionally followed a transactional, one-and-done, provide-a-diagnosis-and-get-reimbursed approach. With this model, physicians may be incentivized to have a particular service or procedure rendered within a narrow scope. They may not receive reimbursement for time spent coaching, listening to, and educating the patient through more intangible means. With this pressure, the physician may overlook other health issues the patient could be experiencing.

To be clear, patient health has always been a top priority in the medical field. However, the old model mostly makes room for “traditional” healthcare practices like meeting the patient, rendering a diagnosis, and giving treatment. In the new team-based care model, doctors focus on coming together to take a more holistic approach versus a single, isolated diagnosis and treatment for their patients. However, under this model, several challenging factors can arise, such as reluctance to communicate due to the inconvenience and potential time constraints among multiple providers.

“The five most common challenges that face healthcare teams relate to accountability, conflict management, decision-making, reflecting on progress, and coaching. These challenges were similar across both clinical and administrative team types.”1

Patients who don’t proactively share the full scope of treatment they’re receiving can cause challenges for clinicians and medical practice leaders. Patients may not share with their primary care doctor that they are also seeing a psychiatrist, neurologist, or other specialist. When each physician flies solo without collaborative communication, they’re not able to make the most informed care decisions based on the patient’s complete treatment regimen.

The New Team Based Care Model

The new team-based care approach requires a holistic change in workflow management that improves the value patients extract from the care they receive. With the patient’s permission, it can provide an environment where multiple practitioners and specialists share information, responsibilities, and delegate tasks. Having a medical assistant, nurse, physician, or specialist assess and gather patient information ahead of time and during patient intake can help improve a patient’s experience.2 

Consider updated digital workflow tools to improve the patient experience. Gone are the days of passing around clipboards and sticky notes for room rotations and patient updates. As one example, sending follow-up messages, educational materials, and other information via modern technology systems that use text messaging can accelerate speed to care and improve patient engagement.

Team-Based Care Communication Tools with PerfectServe

Physician Led Team Based Care: What Works?

When healthcare executives involve physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners in the decision-making process, patient satisfaction increases. The main priority should be the patient’s satisfaction and comfort. How is this accomplished?

It’s only natural for some providers to feel like their own practice and field is “the best.” However, when it comes to the patient, their health and wellbeing are the main priority. If the opportunity presents itself, it’s vital for all providers involved in the patient’s care to communicate with one another, because one medication or method for diagnosis may affect another symptom the patient is experiencing.

Ineffective Team Based Care

As one example of an ineffective approach to patient care, what this “couples therapy” video about cardiology and nephrology. It’s a comedic take on approaching team-based care.

 

In this skit, the specialists let the real issue escape them because they’re more concerned with who’s right. 

Although team-based care provides patients with multiple professional opinions and solutions, it can still be confusing. When healthcare professionals from different fields come together to focus on one issue, there is a shared level of responsibility they must accept. Having this responsibility can sometimes lead to irrelevant disagreements, which takes attention away from their main focus—the patient’s needs.

What Performing Team-Based Care Providers Are Doing

Organizations like Health Advocate take a look at all factors that may affect their patients. Instead of focusing on the diagnosis alone, they take the time to show empathy. It’s not just about finding a quick and easy solution—it’s about asking questions that dive deeper into the patient’s issues which could include other factors like finances, mental health, and overall stress.

“Our Health Advocacy service serves as the integrator for all healthcare and benefits needs. Our Personal Health Advocates will direct people to other experts on our team or coordinate with your benefit vendors to create a seamless transition.”3

Solutions like HealthMap focus on bringing multiple providers together to help those with Chronic Kidney Disease. They may incorporate dieticians and skilled practitioners to align with the nephrologist. Since each patient is unique with comorbidities, their care must be customized to fit their specific needs.

“We partner with patients’ providers, such as primary care physicians, nephrologists, cardiologists, and endocrinologists, to support and manage the ‘whole’ patient in our Kidney Population Management program.”4

Other healthcare teams might take a few minutes each day to align medical staff around that day’s priorities and incoming patients. Here is one example of a medical group aligning priorities and communicating effectively:

Medical Team Providing Team-Based Care in a Medical Staff Meeting

Team-Based Care Strategies for Your Organization

Is it time to rethink your patient care model? If ensuring optimum collaboration across all specialists in a patient’s orbit isn’t on your radar, it should be.. A few benefits of rethinking and optimizing your patient care strategies:

  • An organized process leads to true valued-based care. 
  • Having balanced, professional opinions benefits the patient.
  • Patient education initiatives get them more involved in their own care.
  • Regular, updated communication between provider and patient builds mutual trust.
  • Better processes and technology lead to decreased workloads for medical staff.

Read how other medical practices are teaming up to deliver exceptional patient care outcomes.[/vc_column_text]

Read Success Stories
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1Overcoming Challenges to Teamwork in Healthcare: A Team Effectiveness Framework and Evidence-Based Guidance, Frontiers in Communication, March 17, 2021. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.606445/

2Kevin Hopkins, MD, on challenges to team-based care: COVID-19 & beyond, American Medical Association, April 7, 2021. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/scope-practice/kevin-hopkins-md-challenges-team-based-care-covid-19-beyond

3Health Advocacy is the heart of what we do, Health Advocate, 2022. https://www.healthadvocate.com/site/our-approach

4Healthmap Solutions, 2022. https://hub.healthmapsolutions.com/for-patients

Best Practices for Healthcare Software Deployment

The HDM KLASroom Series is a virtual eLearning series from Health Data Management and KLAS Research. The series aims to share insights that can advance the healthcare industry and educate healthcare leaders and their teams about the industry’s latest technological processes and trends. In the first HDM KLASroom episode, PerfectServe’s Kelly Conklin and Gabrielle Eagles—Chief Clinical Officer and Sr. Director of Marketing, respectively—spoke with Sue Armentrout, who serves as VP of Nursing Informatics and Evidence-Based Practice at Bon Secours Mercy Health, about best practices in software development and deployment that can help to improve the clinician experience. You can watch the episode below or keep reading to get an overview with main takeaways.

When it comes to best practices for software development and deployment in healthcare, improving the clinician experience should always be a central consideration. Whether you’re a manager, a member of the care team, or both, you know these practices matter long before implementation has occurred. This was true for Bon Secours Mercy Health, a large health system based in the Midwest with 50 hospitals worldwide under its umbrella. Bon Secours Mercy Health first implemented PerfectServe’s clinical communication platform in 2018, and the two organizations have been close partners ever since. In this episode, Armentrout spoke with the PerfectServe team about the support the company provides and shared some best practices about implementing and continuously improving communication tools. According to Sue, establishing effective workflows and positive practices at the start will set a system up to achieve successful outcomes. What are those best practices, then? Let’s take a look.

Pick the Right Vendor

A successful software deployment starts with the right software—and therefore, the right vendor. The right vendor solves or nearly eliminates the issues the organization is facing, which in turn decreases frustration across the care team. In the context of clinical communication, frustration is most often caused by inefficient software design, click fatigue, lack of interoperability, siloed deployments, and a lack of insights from end users, all of which contribute to a negative experience and burnout for clinicians. The right vendor should address these core issues by working to remove communication barriers based on the client’s guidance, but the vendor’s team should also offer novel solutions and new workflow suggestions to widen the lens of what powerful communication can accomplish. Bon Secours Mercy Health chose PerfectServe to remove communication barriers, consolidate its software footprint, and improve clinical communication and collaboration between providers.

Bon Secours Mercy Health

“A good vendor will involve users in both the development and deployment process,” said Eagles. “They will be a true partner and work well with others. They will offer policy and governance best practices, and they will have an eye on the future so they can scale and continuously improve along with you.”

Create a Continuous Improvement Cycle

Creating a continuous cycle of improvement relies heavily on the first best practice mentioned above: picking the right vendor. The right vendor should be a partner who supports longevity, has experience in the field, and is willing to innovate to keep up with the pace of change. As technology changes, so does innovation. Health systems have to juggle new guidelines, changing patient expectations, evolving priorities, and many other variables, and a good technology partner will be there every step of the way. Armentrout noted that it’s important to work with a partner who has “eyes for growth,” meaning the partner will have experience working with customers and end users to identify pain points, is comfortable exchanging ideas, plays nice with other vendors, and has throughput initiatives. With these traits, your partner will always be willing to tackle new issues that arise, creating a cycle of continuous improvement and growth.

A continuous improvement cycle is also deeply reliant on identifying pain points through deliberate listening. Bon Secours Mercy Health experienced nurse and provider dissatisfaction with desktop-based communication workflows and is now working with PerfectServe to do away with a setup that, according to end users, can sometimes inhibit a clinician’s ability to provide patient care. In particular, nurses felt tied to their computer and laptop screens and expressed how this limited their ability to flexibly communicate and provide bedside care. After identifying this pain point, Bon Secours Mercy Health worked closely with PerfectServe to roll out a Care Mobility program that puts smartphones in the hands of nurses. This mobile-first approach gives nurses the full power of PerfectServe at their fingertips no matter where they’re located, and the rollout is the product of a system and partner working together to continuously solve problems and improve the clinician experience.

mobile first approach

Armentrout said a good partner is one who is “willing to walk that innovation with us and continue to change as technology changes and as the organization changes.”

Know the Power of Consultative Deployments

PerfectServe has worked with clinicians, care teams, and healthcare systems for over two decades. During this time, we’ve learned what needs to be in the library of best practices for successful software implementations, and one of the most powerful tools from which a health system can benefit is a true consultative deployment. This was the case for Bon Secours Mercy Health, as consultative deployments allow for a firsthand and up-close look at pain points experienced by care team members. While implementing and deploying the Care Mobility program, providers, management, PerfectServe team members, and stakeholders participated in active bedside simulations. This allowed all parties to consult on what solutions were working, what issues or communication functions were causing delays, and where other features or functionality could be added or simplified. This collaborative effort makes deployment smoother and surfaces real-time issues that need to be addressed.

Bon Secours Mercy Health had a strategic plan built out for their Care Mobility program, and with a consultative deployment, PerfectServe was able to assign a team to the project to learn the ways of the system. Armentrout noted that pushback from both parties during a consultative deployment is also a part of best practices, as pushback strengthens the necessary program components and highlights what functionalities are most critical for success. These practices all work in tandem to facilitate a solution deployment that will ultimately make the experience better for clinicians, as pain points will already have been diagnosed, discussed, and rectified.

Critical functions

“[Bon Secours Mercy Health] has structured ourselves to be more of a shared service that is interested in standardizing across the ministry,” Armentrout said. “If we have to work with separate teams on every implementation, it’s reliving and then reinforcing, and we’re bound to get off track. Having that one team that is, oftentimes, coming to tell us, ‘this is where somebody else wants to get off track,’ then we can follow up with that. It’s been great working with a single team like PerfectServe.”

Decrease Variance in Software Use with Governance

Another best practice in successful software deployment is the use of governance and strategic policies. Armentrout and Conklin agreed that governance and other policies should be discussed regularly in work groups and oversight committees to advance initiatives. At Bon Secours Mercy Health, governance is an important part of establishing standards for different jobs within the health system. Having key stakeholders in the room where decisions are made drastically improves the flow and implementation cadence of software deployments, which ultimately moves the system toward the goal of better clinician experiences.

Governance is essential to addressing key issues and expectations during software development and deployment. The PerfectServe and Bon Secours Mercy Health teams were able to use governance strategies to address policies related to the Care Mobility program, including expected time frames for communication functionalities, compliance measures for communication response times, and more. Governance strategies should also take note of insight from the end user, who will help to drive innovation if they’re invited to participate in policy creation.

Governance strategies

“What we find to be most successful in all of our implementations—and then supporting our customers afterward—is having a multidisciplinary approach,” said Conklin. “This happens when everybody who is going to be impacted has a seat at the table to make those decisions on what gets implemented, how it gets implemented, who is going to be mandated to use the platform, how those communications are going to flow, and how things are going to work, day-to-day, within the organization.”

Identify Opportunities to Consolidate the Tech Stack

Reducing the number of applications a provider needs to log in and out of is another way to improve the clinician experience. Many healthcare organizations have an overwhelming number of technology applications to manage, forcing members of the care team to use a variety of systems to communicate and otherwise do their jobs. A project team from the right vendor will put themselves into clinicians’ shoes to understand where communication is lacking and how inefficiencies related to siloed, ineffective technology are contributing to burnout.

Project Team

During a software deployment, look for ways to reduce an organization’s tech stack by asking the following questions:

  • How can this system integrate with key solutions already in use?
  • How will this solution be used differently than existing solutions?
  • Does this solution reduce our portfolio of applications and resources?
  • What functionalities can be added, removed, or combined to reduce clinician frustration?
  • How will this leverage the communication process inside of the EHR? Does it leverage this primary platform?

These questions almost invariably lead to answers that can shape what to integrate with, or replace, to improve operational efficiencies and reduce burnout, increase collaboration, and improve communication.

“The ability to get the right alert or communication to the nurse or patient care tech helps us reduce some redundant systems in the background,” Armentrout said. “That will have a huge impact for many within our organization.”

Remember the Keys to Success

Remembering these best practices for your next technology deployment is essential to enhancing the clinician experience. Here are some key takeaways:

  1. Partnership matters! Find the right partner for your system by choosing a flexible, innovative, and experienced vendor.
  2. Establish clear policies and instill ongoing governance to enforce.
  3. Prioritize—and be an active participant in—consultative deployments.
  4. Work with your vendor to establish a cycle of continuous improvement.
  5. Burnout is real! Bring provider needs and pain points to the forefront, and find ways to address these issues with your vendor partner.
  6. Listen to end users—they drive innovation.
  7. Having key stakeholders in the room when decisions are made is essential for policy and software decisions.

“When you’re selecting a vendor, look for someone who is in it for the long haul, has a keen eye on the future, involves end users, plays well with other vendors, and has a strategy to scale and for continual improvement,” said Eagles. “We know communication workflows can be really complex, and our goal as a vendor is to manage that complexity for you so that clinicians can focus on patient care.”

Want to learn more? Check out the 8-step process hospitals and health systems are using to upgrade their clinical communication strategy.

Nurses of Note Awards 2022: The Nurse Navigator and Staff Educator

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program honors nurses who deserve recognition for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their patients. In the second year of the Nurses of Note program, PerfectServe wants to shine a light on the integrity, perseverance, and compassion that nurses so regularly display in the course of caring for patients.

The incredible stories of these honorees paint a pretty clear picture of the people who populate this noble profession, and their experiences offer just a glimpse into the many ways they make the world a better place. Of the 200-plus nominations PerfectServe received, we selected a group of providers to spotlight during the month of May—which, of course, is home to National Nurses Week—and throughout the rest of 2022.

According to the Sarcoma Foundation of America, July is Sarcoma Awareness Month. This is a month-long recognition for cancers that occur in the bones and soft tissues of the body. In honor of this month, we profiled a nurse who works directly with this and other types of cancers on a daily basis. If you’re interested in supporting the Sarcoma Foundation of America, read more about their mission here.

Honoree 6: The Nurse Navigator and Staff Educator at Prisma Health’s Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Clinic (Columbia, SC) — Julie Moreton

Meet Julie Moreton, MSN, RN, CPHON, and CPN. She’s been the Nurse Navigator in Prisma Health’s Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorder department since 2020. A nurse of 15 years, Julie now assists with new patient education and other teachings related to cancer treatment. On top of her educational role, she makes referrals to and from other institutions, works in care coordination between appointments, and ensures research protocols are being followed. Julie educates not only new and existing patients but also provides oncology-specific education for outpatient and inpatient nurses, promoting certification and professional development among staff in her department.

Before her current role, Julie served as the Oncology Educator for the Cancer and Blood Disorder inpatient and outpatient units at Prisma Health from 2014 to 2020. As she transitioned out of that role, she knew she wanted to continue offering her unit-specific educational functions to keep the nursing staff up-to-date on current best practices in cancer care. Julie is passionate about promoting certification and professional development among staff in her department. Early in her time at Prisma Health, she started championing several professional certifications for all nursing staff in the Children’s Hospital. Since 2015, she has been responsible for maintaining a contract that allows nurses to take these certifications at no cost to themselves. This is not a job requirement—Julie does this because of the value it brings to other nurses.

Julie’s current role as the Nurse Navigator includes teaching nurses all aspects of cancer care, such as placing central lines and the basics of chemotherapy. On top of this role, Julie also serves as the President of the local Association for Pediatric Hematology Oncology Nurses (APHON) chapter, which Julie calls the “gold standard for pediatric chemotherapy education for nurses.” APHON offers a two-day course for nurses to develop competency in administering chemotherapy and biotherapy to care for children receiving these treatments. The process of receiving the certification to teach APHON courses, however, is no easy feat. (Connect this and next paragraph maybe?)

To become certified, Julie and two other colleagues had first to meet the qualifications to apply for a grant to learn how to teach the APHON course. Back in 2016, Julie attended the annual APHON conference to become instructor certified so she could teach the courses herself. She currently teaches two to three classes per year and, in 2022, started offering the course virtually. Her lessons are available to nurses nationwide.

For her role in navigating the course of cancer care education and chemotherapy application, we at PerfectServe feel Julie is another nursing superhero to her patients and coworkers. Julie takes on her educational role with pride and continues to support other nurses as they further their education with multiple certifications. Thanks to Julie, nurses at Prisma Health and around the country are better prepared to provide care to cancer patients and families, making Julie an outstanding Nurse of Note!

Thank You

Julie, we at PerfectServe are honored to highlight your role as the Nurse Navigator at Prisma Health. Your role in educating others and facilitating classes and certifications makes you a hero. Thank you for the education you provide and the work you do every day for patients, families, and coworkers. We are honored to call you a 2022 Nurse of Note!

Q&A

In addition to learning about Julie’s various educational roles, we posed a few additional questions to get to know her better. 

Why did you choose to become a nurse?
I chose to be a nurse because one of my favorite aunts is a nurse, and I wanted to be like her! I also had an emergency room experience getting stitches when I was young, and I remember being very interested in what was happening. I chose pediatric oncology nursing after volunteering at a summer camp for kids with cancer when I was in college. I visited one of my campers during her bone marrow transplant and was fascinated by pediatric oncology nursing. 

What is the biggest lesson you learned while serving as a nurse throughout the pandemic?
The biggest lesson I learned was definitely flexibility. You are taught to be flexible in nursing school, but I had never experienced a time prior to the pandemic when nurses were asked to care for infectious patients without proper protective gear or care for patients outside their area of expertise. Many nurses are still experiencing change fatigue related to the near-constant updates received during the height of the pandemic.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self about serving in the healthcare field?
There are many things I probably would have tried to warn myself about, but the main one is emotional boundaries. In pediatric oncology, you face some very difficult days. I really struggled with maintaining emotional boundaries in my early years of practice. I don’t ever regret doing something that makes life for the family of a cancer patient easier, but I know now that it isn’t healthy to be so attached. 

What do you do to relax after a stressful day?
I like having a physical outlet for stress, and I get exercise from walking my dog. Being out in nature always helps me gain a more positive perspective. I also like spending time with friends and watching comedies like The Office; laughter is a great way to relieve stress!

What changes would you like to see in the nursing field in the future?
I would love to see nurses receive fair wages, as well as more workplaces focusing on staffing retention. Some organizations really have nurse retention as a focus, and you can tell by how they treat their nursing staff. I would also love for nurses to eventually have the energy and motivation to engage in professional development and quality initiatives when they aren’t so burned out from the pandemic. 

If you had to pick one song that describes you as a nurse, what would it be?
My song would probably be “She Works Hard for the Money” by Donna Summer. I’m nothing if not a hard worker! I was always willing to work nights, weekends, and overtime to make extra money.

Make sure to follow our blog as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year.

For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.

Nurses of Note Awards 2022: Chief Operations Officer Celebrates Pride Month and New Role

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program honors nurses who deserve recognition for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their patients. In the second year of the Nurses of Note program, PerfectServe wants to shine a light on the integrity, perseverance, and compassion that nurses so regularly display in the course of caring for patients.

The incredible stories of these honorees paint a pretty clear picture of the people who populate this noble profession, and their experiences offer just a glimpse into the many ways they make the world a better place. Of the 200-plus nominations PerfectServe received, we selected a group of providers to spotlight during the month of May—which, of course, is home to National Nurses Week—and throughout the rest of 2022.

In honor of Pride Month, we’re highlighting one of our wonderful Nurses of Note honorees who also happens to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Honoree 5: Robert Mangold, BSN, RN — Chief Operations Officer at Logan County Health Services (Oakley, KS)

Having been in healthcare for over 15 years, Robert Mangold’s desire to care for others has been a fixture throughout the nursing and leadership roles that mark his career. He joined Logan County Health Services in Oakley, KS, in 2019 as the Director of Nursing, but in April of this year, he was named Chief Operations Officer for the organization. Robert is praised by colleagues for his adept management and guidance, steady professionalism, and kind demeanor. He’s also been known to fill voids wherever needed, including stepping in for other nurses when they’re out.

Robert takes pride in providing high-quality, compassionate care for his patients. In his current role, he’s responsible for the day-to-day operations of Logan County Health Services, which also means providing oversight of all clinical aspects at the center. Robert started his career in healthcare by obtaining an EMT certificate in 2007 but initially struggled with the idea of working in a predominantly female workforce. He shared that, by working in healthcare, he has learned that caring for others is a gender-neutral role. Today, he’s in the process of getting his master’s degree in nursing leadership and management. 

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community and in honor of Pride Month, Robert also shared the importance of being his authentic self and how that identity intersects with the nursing profession and his life in a rural community. Though the gay community in Oakley is small, Robert is passionate about the future of care for the LGBTQ+ population. In particular, he noted that mental and behavioral issues in this community need greater attention from the healthcare industry. Sadly, Robert is one of many who has lost friends to suicide—he shared a recent statistic that LGBTQ+ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers. As this issue persists, he’d like to see more resources available for young people who may not have a proper support system to help them navigate the challenges of coming out and seeking acceptance.

For Robert, Pride Month is a reminder of the challenges the LGBTQ+ community and its allies have faced, along with the triumphs they’ve achieved. He is a strong advocate for equal rights and for educating the public on social issues that the community faces, both inside and outside of healthcare. Robert and his husband Shawn are proud dads to two children, and they’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of their third child, due in early July. He also has two beloved canine friends—a chihuahua and a standard poodle—that offer a striking juxtaposition of size when they’re together. Robert credits his success and happiness to his parents and siblings, who have been consistently supportive of him, his career, and his family throughout his life.

Robert’s nominator wrote the following about him: “He is an amazing nurse, but more than that, he is just a phenomenal person. Kind-hearted, caring, funny, professional, a great listener, forward thinker, and such a treasure for our facility to have found. He’s a class act!”

Robert’s commitment to multiple roles in the healthcare field and his leadership within Logan County Health Services make him an exceptionally deserving 2022 Nurse of Note.

Thank You

Robert, we’re honored to highlight you as a 2022 Nurse of Note. Your leadership in—and sacrifices made for—the field of nursing are deeply appreciated, and we thank you for sharing your perspectives about healthcare and issues of importance in the LGBTQ+ community.

At PerfectServe, we have a saying that has become closely connected to our core values: “Different is Perfect.” When it comes to the puzzle pieces that coalesce to form your identity—who you are, who you love, where you come from, what you believe, and so much more—we know that a life lived happily and most fulfilled is one where you can be your truest, most authentic self in every situation.

For all of these reasons, Robert, you are an exceptionally deserving Nurse of Note!

Q&A

In addition to learning about Robert’s life and experience in healthcare, we posed a few additional questions to get to know him better. 

Why did you choose to become a nurse?
I knew early on that I wanted to be in healthcare, but it took me a while to decide on my career as a nurse. I started by obtaining my EMT certificate in 2007. I then decided I wanted to be in a more controlled environment, so I got my CNA. A few years later, I returned to school for my associate’s degree in nursing and received my RN license in 2015. I’ve since returned to school and received my bachelor’s in nursing in 2018, and I am currently working toward my master’s in nursing leadership and management! I struggled with the idea of being a nurse at first due to the fact that the nursing field has been predominantly populated by females. However, after working in healthcare and becoming a nurse, I strongly feel that caring for someone is a gender-neutral role. If you can provide the necessary care, that’s all that truly matters.

What is the biggest lesson you learned while serving as a nurse throughout the pandemic? 
One of the biggest lessons I learned during the pandemic was how important it is to maintain resiliency and to always take time for self-care. As caregivers, we often forget to care for ourselves, and self-care was particularly important during the height of the pandemic.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self about serving in the healthcare field?
My one piece of advice would be to never be afraid of change!

What do you do to relax after a stressful day?
It honestly depends on the day. Some days, I just want to relax and spend time with my family. Other days, I may choose to go for a walk, read a book, or maybe have a glass of wine or a drink with friends.  

What changes would you like to see in the nursing field in the future? 
I would like to see standardized federal nurse-to-patient ratios based on patient acuity/level of care.

 If you had to pick one song that describes you as a nurse, what would it be? 
“Stand by You” by Rachel Platten. The song starts with, “Hands, put your empty hands in mine. And scars, show me all the scars you hide! And hey, if your wings are broken, please take mine ’til yours can open too, ’cause I’m gonna stand by you.” These lyrics remind me of who I am as a nurse and the importance of caring for and helping people.

Make sure to follow our blog as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year.

For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.

Nurses of Note Awards 2022: Retired Interior Designer Embarks on Second Career as a Nurse

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program honors nurses who deserve recognition for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their patients. In the second year of the Nurses of Note program, PerfectServe wants to shine a light on the integrity, perseverance, and compassion that nurses so regularly display in the course of caring for patients.

The incredible stories of these honorees paint a pretty clear picture of the people who populate this noble profession, and their experiences offer just a glimpse into the many ways they make the world a better place. Of the 200-plus nominations PerfectServe received, we selected a group of providers to spotlight during the month of May—which, of course, is home to National Nurses Week—and throughout the rest of 2022.

Honoree 4: Chris Morgan, RN — QAQI Director at CHESI (Cairo, IL)

Chris Morgan arrives early to work every single day. He is the type of nurse who volunteers during his off days and comes in on weekends to provide support when Community Health and Emergency Services Inc. (CHESI) is understaffed. The small, Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) has nine regional primary care locations in seven counties and serves everyone who walks through its doors—no one is turned away.

Chris is the QAQI/Risk Management Director at CHESI, located in Cairo, IL. But he didn’t start out in risk management or even as a nurse. In fact, Chris retired from another field to become a nurse to better serve his community and to take advantage of the opportunities available to him. Chris worked in the design field for over 20 years, teaching interior design at the University of North Texas. He moved to Cairo, IL, and as there was no longer a market for his design specialty, he began looking for other ways to serve those around him and to challenge himself to learn something new.

Chris enrolled in a local junior college and took many courses in a nursing program designed to increase the nursing population in the area. For the past 13 years, he’s served in Alexander County, a county with one of the highest rates of poverty in the state of Illinois (and the entire US). Service came naturally to him, having been a teacher for two decades. At 61 years old, he describes himself as spry and says that nursing allows him to utilize the “other side of his brain.”

When the pandemic hit, Chris created vaccine programs with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Independent Health Care Plan (ICARE) to obtain information and stock to vaccinate the community. Chris did all the applications, orders, and training required to be eligible for the vaccines from the government-assisted programs, allowing CHESI to begin administering the vaccine on the first day of the national rollout—way before many state health departments could do so. He also independently set up PCR and Rapid Testing locations through IDPH, ICARE, and the CDC. These sites also opened on the very first day possible, with all nine CHESI locations participating.

Beyond his planning work for vaccinations and testing, Chris dressed in PPE daily to perform COVID-19 testing at the door of the largest CHESI facility. He also volunteered to regularly disinfect every surface and machine inside CHESI facilities to protect coworkers and patients from the spread of the virus. According to Chris’ nominator, “There is literally no job too big or too small for him. He is always the first one willing to jump on board with any project that may benefit our organization and our patients. Any time he takes on a task or role, he does whatever he can to make sure it is done correctly. His empathy, veracity, attention to detail, and optimism are characteristics that make him an exceptional nurse.”

Chris’ detailed vision, can-do attitude, and dedication to nursing—especially after pursuing a completely different career path for decades—remind us of the incredible nurses who do life-changing work for their patients every single day. The critical, hands-on work that Chris performed across all CHESI locations makes him a remarkable nurse, indeed.

Thank You

Chris, we at PerfectServe are honored to highlight your story and your diligence in serving your community. Your journey to becoming a nurse highlights the fact that nurses come from many different backgrounds and take many different paths to arrive at the bedside. The common theme? They all want to help their patients get healthy. Thank you for the planning you do and the care you give to those around you. We are honored to call you a 2022 Nurse of Note!

Q&A

In addition to learning about Chris’ previous career and his various roles at CHESI, we posed a few additional questions to get to know him better.

Why did you choose to become a nurse, and how long have you been one?
I retired from teaching interior design at the University of North Texas. I moved to Cairo, Illinois, in Alexander County, which has the highest poverty rate in the state and nation. It’s not quite the area to continue design work! The dean’s wife in Texas oversaw two nursing programs and encouraged me to look into taking courses. I thought this would be a way to help my community and serve those in need. I went to the local junior college and took advantage of a program to increase the nursing population in our area. I have been nursing full time for 13 years!

What is the biggest lesson you learned while serving as a nurse throughout the pandemic?
I learned the importance of being flexible and proactive in whatever you perceive as the next problem. You also must cut through the fat of multipage announcements or alerts and get to the point; I want to receive the CliffsNotes version of what is next and what is essential!

What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self about serving in the healthcare field?
Make sure you reflect and review concerns. Ask yourself if the situation you are in is really a disaster or just an inconvenience. Also, don’t overanalyze the “what if?” questions in life.

What do you do to relax after a stressful day?
Weather permitting, I put my top down on the short drive home. I also like to walk the dogs to the river every evening. That is my ritual, and I am sure to do it on good and bad days.

What changes would you like to see in the nursing field of the future?
I believe there should be some type of compassion/empathy entry exam for nursing school. Some get into this field simply as a career choice, and it is so much more than that! If you don’t care about people, you should not be a nurse.

If you had to pick one song that describes your life as a nurse, what would it be?
“The Walker” by Fitz and the Tantrums. When I hear it, I can’t stay still. It also gets me pumped at the end of a long day!

Make sure to follow our blog as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year.

For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.

Nurses of Note Awards 2022: The Dynamic Nurse IT Leader

PerfectServe’s Nurses of Note awards program honors nurses who deserve recognition for their remarkable resilience and unwavering dedication to their patients. In the second year of the Nurses of Note program, PerfectServe wants to shine a light on the integrity, perseverance, and compassion that nurses so regularly display in the course of caring for patients.

The incredible stories of these honorees paint a pretty clear picture of the people who populate this noble profession, and their experiences offer just a glimpse into the many ways they make the world a better place. Of the 200-plus nominations PerfectServe received, we selected a group of providers to spotlight during the month of May—which, of course, is home to National Nurses Week—and throughout the rest of 2022.

Honoree 3: Robin Gadd-Lane, MSN, RN – Manager of Digital Health and Transformation Systems at Prisma Health (Greenville, SC)

Robin Gadd-Lane wears many hats in her role at Prisma Health in Greenville, SC. As Manager for the Digital Health and Transformation Systems team, Robin leads two groups that transform, organize, and enhance nursing staff workflows, IT connections, systems, and much more. These teams support hundreds of staff across multiple hospitals and ambulatory clinics.

Robin’s Digital Health team handles all things related to telehealth, while the Transformation Systems team focuses on customer relationship management, clinical communications, and clinical on-call scheduling. Both teams work with technology and people to maintain what Robin calls a “digital front door.” As a nurse with 18 years of clinical experience, Robin credits her background in both nursing and informatics for giving her the necessary knowledge and experience, saying it has allowed her and her team to understand different perspectives among a diverse customer base.

Part of Robin’s role involves adjusting workflows to better accommodate the needs of employees and patients alike. Robin works to help nurses leverage PerfectServe’s Telmediq solution for prompt communication between providers and other groups to improve patient care efficiency. The cloud-based communication platform supports the transmission of time-sensitive information related to patient care, and Robin’s job is to assist nurses with its use in cases such as communicating strokes, traumas, rapid response, and other emergencies at multiple facilities. Robin’s work improves clinical collaboration and communication in many ways, such as removing repetitive phone calls and other interruptions to patient care by using text message workflows.

Among her many talents, Robin’s ingenuity stands out. Around two years ago, she identified a communication issue between athletic trainers and the schools they supported during practices and games. Trainers wanted to provide support and coaching to multiple students and teams, but due to scheduling, they could not be in more than one location at once. Robin and her teams combined multiple technological applications to streamline the communication capabilities between these athletic coaches and their teams, giving the trainers the ability to service multiple schools in very short periods of time. Calling the process the “Salesforce-Telmediq Video Integration,” the process works as follows:

  • When a student is injured without a trainer present, a QR code can be accessed to find information about the student, their coach, and their parent.
  • From this, a Telmediq message is triggered, connecting to an on-duty trainer who can then see all the patient’s info (the patient being the student, in this case).
  • A telehealth link is sent, allowing the student and trainer to connect virtually.

Robin’s process allows the trainer to see the patient in real time to potentially prevent an ER visit for something that can be treated or addressed virtually.

Through her hard work, resourcefulness, and leadership, Robin credits her team for their knowledge and perseverance. She shared that the work she does could not happen without her team, and the Salesforce-Telmediq Video Integration process could not have become a reality without their help. And though she is no longer a practicing nurse by trade, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Robin eagerly volunteered to return to the bedside to help her colleagues during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of her varied IT responsibilities, Robin took on nursing shifts during nights and weekends to ease the burden of swelling patient loads felt by exhausted staff. Robin’s natural leadership and innovation continue to make the lives of her coworkers and patients easier and more fulfilling.

Thank You

Robin, we at PerfectServe are honored to highlight the dedication and ingenuity you bring to work with you every day. Thank you for so selflessly serving your community, your coworkers, and the patients who come to Prisma Health to receive care. If you’re not the perfect example of a Nurse of Note—someone who, quite literally, goes above and beyond the call of duty for a cause that serves the greater good—we don’t know who is.

Q&A

In addition to learning about Robin’s role and her creative work process, we posed a few additional questions to get to know her better:

Why did you choose to become a nurse?
My “why” for my life is that I take joy from helping and caring for others. I find value in seeing others be successful. I became a nurse because I found, since I was young, that I always enjoyed treating cuts and other injuries my friends or family encountered. As I got older, I became more interested in the medical field. Once I saw how nurses connected with patients and became the advocates for their care, the profession just called to me. From there, I just kept finding ways to grow.

What is the biggest lesson you learned while serving as a nurse throughout the pandemic?
I was amazed by the sacrifices of so many in my profession. I found joy in using my nursing skills to give back to my community by giving as many vaccines as possible. However, one of the biggest lessons I have learned was that, even with all the sacrifices, too many in the community didn’t want to listen to science. The cost was measured in human lives. Therefore, my takeaway from the pandemic is that we ensure our youth become educated about the scientific method. I don’t believe this information is a lie or misrepresentation of how science works. I believe you must utilize the best evidence-based knowledge you have at that time, and as the knowledge base grows, the findings will either be validated or continue to evolve.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self about serving in the healthcare field?
I wish I had started my nursing journey earlier! It took several years of trying other fields before I landed on nursing.

What do you do to relax after a stressful day?
Playing with my son and hanging out with my husband. Our family loves to hike, so we spend a lot of time on trails and away from technology during the weekends.

What changes would you like to see in the nursing field in the future?
I would like to see nursing take a bigger role in technology. Healthcare lags behind other industries when it comes to technology, and this creates increased challenges to bring about change to the complex workflows in healthcare. Nursing is typically a central part of those workflows, and they are key to that change. The nurse’s perspective is needed to help bridge that gap between technology and healthcare.

If you had to pick one song that describes you as a nurse, what would it be?
I would say the song “Try Everything” by Shakira describes my life as a nurse.

Make sure to follow our blog as we publish in-depth profiles about more of our deserving Nurses of Note honorees throughout the year.

For more about Nurses of Note 2022, check out the full list of winners.