The Handoff

Our guest for this episode is Laura Reichhardt, the Director for the Hawaii State Center for Nursing. As the most remote inhabited island chain in the world, Hawaii faces a unique set of challenges when it comes to nursing, including a high cost of living, a diverse patient population, difficulty transferring in nurses from out of state, and access to supplies that can be disrupted by natural disasters and other logistical issues.

During the pandemic, these challenges became exacerbated and the state's supply of nurses was severely limited. Laura and her colleagues at the center for nursing worked closely with the state government on their COVID response plan and to enact changes that would facilitate the flow of nurses into the state.

Today Laura and Dan talk about that work, as well as Hawaii's nurse residency program, the first statewide residency program in the nation. She also talks about what she sees as the future of the workforce, the need to train more specialist nurses and her advice for nurses who want to get more involved in policy making at the state and local level.

Links to recommended reading:

• Hawaii Center for Nursing
• Hawai'i Nurses Play Major Role in COVID-19 Pandemic Response

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/laura-reichhardt

We're back for season 5 of The Handoff with a very special guest, Dr. Sheldon D. Fields. Dr. Fields is the inaugural Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at Penn State University, where he is also a research professor in the College of Nursing. Dr. Fields was the first-ever male Registered Nurse selected for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship, in which he served as a policy adviser to Senator Barbara Mikulski on the Senate HELP committee during the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Fields is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the National Academies of Practice.

After more than 30 years in the healthcare industry, Dr. Fields has said that it is his personal mission to do everything he can to help nursing move forward with a plan to diversify the profession. Today he and I talk about what that plan looks like, what nurse educators need to do to help combat racism in the field, how we can recruit more diverse students into nursing and how we can teach nurses and nursing students to be anti-racist.

Links to recommended reading:

• The Future of Nursing 2020-2030
• National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/sheldon-fields

Dr. Nurse Dan and the rest of The Handoff team are busy recording new episodes for Season 5, which will be launching next week.

We've already lined up some great guests to talk about everything from new approaches to staffing and workforce, the opportunity that nurses have to shape policy decisions coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and inspiring initiatives aimed at making nursing more diverse. We still have a few openings in our line-up, so if you have a great guest idea, please feel free to email us at [email protected].

We look forward to sharing new episodes with you very soon!

Today's episode is our last of season 4 and it's with one of the leading voices in the conversation around the nursing workforce. Dr. Peter Buerhaus is a healthcare economist and a Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Montana at Bozeman.

Today we talk about his research on the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on the nursing profession and some of the historical precedents that can give us hints at the future. Peter also shares what keeps him up at night, specifically how the constant negative messaging around nursing could ultimately dissuade young people from pursuing it as a career path.

Links to recommended reading:

• Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Montana State
• MSU to lead study examining COVID-19's effect on U.S. nursing workforce
• Peter Buerhaus on Google Scholar

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/peter-buerhaus

Our guest today for this episode is here to talk about an issue that is very close to our hearts here at Trusted Health: nurse staffing. Dani Bowie has built a career around solving this issue and cutting down the time that nurse managers spend creating schedules.

She earned her doctorate in Nursing from Yale with a particular emphasis on the issues of staffing and scheduling and is now the Vice President of Workforce Development at Bon Secours Mercy Health, where she is helping to build the nursing workforce of the future. At the center of this is a truly game-changing approach to scheduling, which takes the burden off of nurse managers and instead enlists a team of workforce professionals who are specially trained in this area. Today Dan and Dani talk about that program, what she's seeing other health systems do in this area and what she thinks a truly flexible workforce looks like.

Links to recommended reading:

• How Legacy Health improved nurse satisfaction & cut costs with a new approach to workforce management
• Trusted Works

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/dani-bowie

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Patricia Pittman, a Professor of Health Policy and Management and the Director of the Health Workforce Research Center at George Washington. Dr. Pittman is part of a team of researchers working on the Moral Injury Project, the aim of which is to inform the healthcare industry and the broader public about the challenges facing nurses and about the importance of system-level changes to address these problems.

Dr. Pittman and her team have been collecting stories of moral injury from nurses across a variety of levels and settings in order to identify the constraints that are weakening the social conscience of the profession. Today she talks with Dam about what she's learned from this project, why she thinks the causes of moral injury need to be addressed at the policy level, and how nurses can get involved.

Links to recommended reading:

• Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity
• The Moral Injury Project
• Physicians aren't 'burning out.' They're suffering from moral injury
• Episode 50: Building resilience in the face of moral suffering

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/polly-pittman

Our guest for this episode has a truly remarkable story. At 26, Paul Coyne suffered a stroke while working as a derivatives analyst at Goldman Sachs. Rather than slowing him down, the stroke and the nurses who cared for him inspired Paul to pursue a career in healthcare, and over the next four years, he earned five degrees, including a Doctorate from Columbia University School of Nursing, an MBA in Healthcare Management and an MS in Finance from Northeastern University.

Paul went on to pursue a career in nursing informatics at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, where he is now a Vice President. He also founded Inspiren, a nurse-led technology company that has been recognized by awards from the ANA, Time Magazine, Fast Company, Becker's Hospital Review, SXSW and the Webby Awards.

In our conversation today, Paul and Dan talk about his journey and how it led him to where he is today, as well as the outside-the-box advice he gives to nurses who come to him for career advice.

Links to recommended reading:

• Improving Clinical Communications: A Smartphone for Every Nurse
• Paul Coyne, A Nursing Graduate Inspired by His Nurses

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/paul-coyne

Our guest for this episode is Nan Henderson, DNP, MSN-Ed, RN, a former critical care nurse who is an expert in patient safety, particularly as it relates to handoffs.

After a series of internal surveys revealed that handoffs were consistently an issue within her organization, Nan and her team focused on completely overhauling their process. Starting with a literature review and focus groups with the organization's nurses, Nan was eventually drawn to I-PASS, a standardized method for handoffs that greatly reduced the amount of errors involved in care transitions. Today she and Dan talk about this process in detail, as well as her overall efforts to create a strong culture of safety and reduce harm events at her facility.

Links to recommended reading:

• AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture
• I-PASS Institute Resources
• Improving Patient Handoffs and Transitions through Adaptation and Implementation of I-PASS Across Multiple Handoff Settings

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/nan-henderson

Our guest for this episode is Jana Bitton, the executive director for the Oregon Center for Nursing. Jana is as passionate an advocate for the nursing profession as you will find and is focused on helping the nurses in her state find work and advance their careers.

Today Jana gives Dan an update on the situation in Oregon and what she's hearing from nurses on the frontlines as the state battles its worst outbreak since the pandemic began.

She also talks about both the challenges and the opportunities she sees ahead for nurses given the impact of the pandemic on the profession, why she thinks nursing new grads deserve an especially big dose of empathy and compassion and why regulations for new nurses have got to give.

Links to recommended reading:

• NOT WORKING WELL: Clinical Placement for Nursing Students in an Era of Pandemic
• BRIEF: The Connection Between Local Nurse Recruitment Efforts and Social Determinants of Health

Episode 51: How COVID-19 has impacted the nursing workforce

Tiffany Gibson likes to refer to herself as a troublemaker and a nurse agitator -- two labels that Dr. Nurse Dan can absolutely get behind!

Tiffany is a pediatric nurse turned professional development specialist who helps nurses become more effective leaders. Her focus is on asking hard questions, disrupting old narratives and empowering a new generation of culturally competent nurses.

In their conversation, Tiffany and Dan talk about why she thinks that DE&I can't be separated from professional development and how she integrates the two in her consulting practice. She shares her thoughts on the intersection of belonging and patient safety, why managing your emotions is critical to becoming an effective leader and why equity is about more than just racial justice.

Links to recommended reading:

• The New Nurse Academy Blog
• Episode 45: What the ANA is doing to combat racism in nursing

The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/tiffany-gibson