RSS Episodes Archive

Rehumanizing Nursing Work & Care Using Ambient Voice Technology

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Brian Weirich, Chief Nursing Innovation Officer at Bon Secours Mercy Health, returns to discuss the transformative potential of ambient voice technology in nursing. He explains how this technology can reduce documentation burdens, streamline administrative tasks, and rehumanize patient care by freeing up nurses' time. Dr. Weirich shares insights on generative AI, real-time data collection, and emerging innovations like real-time location systems (RTLS) and smart rooms. He emphasizes the need for nurse involvement in developing these technologies to ensure they address real-world challenges. Throughout the episode, Dr. Weirich remains optimistic about the future, advocating for curiosity, innovation, and collaboration in healthcare.

October 30, 2024

Reimaging Legacy Systems to Spur Positive Change in Healthcare

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson welcomes back Dr. Josh Wymer, Chief Health Information and Data Strategy Officer with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Dr. Wymer, with a decorated 20-year Navy career and extensive leadership experience in healthcare, shares his vision for transforming legacy systems to empower nurses and modernize healthcare. They explore pressing topics such as democratizing the nursing workforce, ensuring fair compensation, the rise of gig-style nursing, and aligning nursing competencies with the evolving demands of healthcare. Dr. Wymer also highlights the critical role technology and data play in shaping the future of health, while advocating for more collaborative, agile leadership to drive sustainable change across the industry.

October 23, 2024

Reducing Burden and Helping Nurses Reconnect with their Purpose

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Tiffany Murdoch, the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Ochsner Health. Tiffany brings a wealth of experience from her leadership roles and shares her visionary strategies for revolutionizing nursing practice. From virtual nursing innovations to cutting-edge workforce initiatives, she’s leading a transformation in healthcare that puts nurses at the forefront of patient care. Listen as Tiffany dives deep into nurse retention, technology-driven care models, and fostering purpose and kindness in the profession.

October 16, 2024

Architecting a Bright and Optimistic Future for Nursing

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Dr. Terry McDonald, system chief nursing executive and senior vice president at Duke University Health System. Dr. McDonald shares her journey from her early careers to becoming a leader in healthcare, highlighting her experience in transforming nursing leadership and supporting second and third career nurses. The conversation delves into the evolution of nursing since the pandemic, the enrichment brought by diverse career backgrounds, and the exciting future for nurses across generations. Dr. McDonald also discusses the importance of maintaining optimism, embracing new technologies, and fostering an environment where nurses can thrive and innovate in the evolving healthcare landscape.

October 9, 2024

Leading Healthcare Teams with Presence and Purpose

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Brad Jordan, CEO of a long-term acute care hospital, to explore his journey from paramedic to healthcare executive. Brad shares his people-first leadership philosophy, emphasizing the importance of transparency, honesty, and being present with the team. His unique perspective on workforce management includes personalized gestures like handwritten notes to families, fostering a culture of care that extends beyond clinical duties. Brad discusses the value of education, mentoring, and continuing growth for leaders at all levels. Hear how Brad’s background in emergency medicine shaped his approach to both patient care and team engagement. Brad’s passion for leadership and dedication to healthcare professionals is a powerful reminder of the impact leaders can have on shaping the future of healthcare.

October 2, 2024

Listening to Co-Create a More Flexible Nursing Workforce

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Jennifer Shull, the Chief Nursing Executive at Kettering Health, to explore workforce development, flexibility, and finding joy in nursing. Dr. Shull shares her strategies for engaging frontline nurses, creating a supportive work environment, and challenging traditional paradigms in healthcare. Listen in to learn how Dr. Shull fosters an inclusive approach to leadership, addresses the unique needs of today’s nursing workforce, and innovates care models to support professional growth.

September 25, 2024

Redefining Patient Care with Virtual Nursing

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Darius Love, Assistant Vice President of Workforce Optimization and Redesign at Orlando Health, to explore the groundbreaking world of virtual nursing. Dr. Love shares his visionary approach to healthcare delivery, highlighting how virtual care models serve as an extension of in-person teams, allowing nurses to focus more on high-touch aspects of patient care. He delves into the strategies for overcoming resistance to change, the crucial role of nursing informatics in streamlining workflows, and the impact of positive leadership on advancing the future of healthcare. Join us as we discuss how moments matter, the power of virtual teams, and why adaptive leadership is key in this new era of nursing.

September 18, 2024

Navigating Professional Transitions and AI in Nursing

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with clinical executive Patches Seeley to explore the impact of professional transitions on nurse leaders and how to break the cycle of shame often associated with career setbacks. Drawing on over 20 years of experience in healthcare leadership, Patches shares insights on the evolving role of technology, including generative AI, in nursing. The discussion dives into how AI can democratize healthcare, optimize workforce management, and empower nurse leaders to thrive in times of change. Tune in for a thoughtful conversation on navigating transitions, fostering community, and embracing new opportunities in healthcare.

September 11, 2024

Dynamic Thinking for a New Era of Nurse Workforce Leadership

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson welcomes Dr. Amy Wilson, Chief Nurse Executive at SSM Health, to explore the future of nursing leadership within complex adaptive systems. Dr. Wilson shares her insights on workforce redesign, decreasing burnout, and the strategic integration of technology to enhance nurse autonomy and reduce administrative burden. Together, they discuss how SSM Health is leading the way with dynamic workforce models, innovative technology solutions, and robust nursing pipelines, all aimed at improving patient care and nursing leadership in a rapidly evolving healthcare environment.

September 4, 2024

Empowering Nurses to Work at the Top of Their Licenses

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. April Tinsley, the National Vice President of Clinical Performance at Kaiser Permanente, to explore the critical role of nurse leaders in empowering nurses to work at the top of their licenses. With over 25 years of experience in healthcare leadership, Dr. Tinsley shares her journey from bedside nursing to executive leadership, offering valuable perspectives on how to optimize clinical operations, enhance patient care, and foster a supportive environment for nursing professionals. Dr. Tinsley discusses the importance of moving beyond transactional tasks, encouraging nurse leaders to challenge traditional practices and think creatively about staffing and work environments. She emphasizes the need for nurses to fully utilize their training and expertise, providing actionable insights on how to elevate the role of professional nursing within healthcare teams. Dr. Tinsley encourages nurse leaders to lead with purpose, create a culture of collaboration, and ensure that nurses are equipped with the resources they need to deliver the highest quality care.

August 28, 2024

Including and Elevating Nurse Voices at the Decision Table

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Janice Walker, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer for the Southeast Region of Advocate Health. Together, they explore the critical role of nurse leaders in healthcare decision-making, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that nurses have a voice at every level. Dr. Walker shares her wealth of experience from top healthcare institutions, offering practical steps for involving nurses in processes that impact patient safety, workforce engagement, and nursing quality. Discover how nurses can effectively participate in healthcare leadership and the innovative strategies that are shaping the future of the profession.

August 21, 2024

Approaching Analytics and AI in Nursing with Curiosity and Confidence

Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Joe Squire, the Director of Analytics and Data Science at UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute. Joe shares his journey from aspiring sound engineer to nursing and eventually to a career in data science. He discusses how he uses data analytics to improve healthcare outcomes, including significantly reducing cardiac surgery mortality rates. Joe also opens up about his personal experiences with burnout and offers advice for healthcare professionals facing similar challenges. Additionally, they explore the role of AI in healthcare and how nurses can leverage data to enhance patient care. Joe’s insights and passion for data-driven solutions are both inspiring and educational for nurse leaders and healthcare professionals.

August 14, 2024

Leading Healthcare Teams with Data and Heart

In this season finale of The Handoff, Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Michael Jones, a regional director at Common Spirit Health and a leader in clinical informatics. With a rich background in nursing and health administration, Dr. Jones shares his strategies for managing change, building resilient teams, and leveraging data to improve patient outcomes. From preventing burnout in a 24/7 healthcare environment to mastering stakeholder engagement, Dr. Jones provides invaluable insights into the future of healthcare leadership. Listen in for a compelling discussion on the dynamic intersection of nursing, technology, and business.

May 22, 2024

Creative Nurse Workforce Development Strategies

Dr. Joni Watson welcomes Johnna Smith, the Chief Nurse Executive at Southern Illinois Healthcare St. Joseph Memorial Hospital. With a deep commitment to patient-centered care and operational excellence, Johnna has been a transformative leader in the healthcare sector. The discussion delves into how her organization fosters a culture of innovation, particularly through the lens of nursing and healthcare workforce stabilization. Johnna shares her strategies for engaging and developing the workforce through creative and inclusive idea generation and multidisciplinary teamwork. This episode provides a comprehensive look at practical approaches to workforce challenges, leadership in nursing, and fostering a collaborative and supportive work environment.

May 15, 2024

Creating a Strong Culture of Patient Safety

Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Ann Louise Puopolo, a venerated safety professional and former VP of enterprise patient safety at CVS Health. Anne Louise shares her extensive experience in patient safety, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between quality healthcare outcomes and patient safety. She explores the crucial roles of data analysis, risk management, and creating a culture of transparency and accountability. Insights into medical malpractice and the importance of peer support programs are discussed, alongside strategies for engaging front-line staff in workflow design. Anne Louise also addresses the ongoing challenges in healthcare, such as workplace violence and the imperative of supporting healthcare workers.

May 8, 2024

Building More Inclusive Care Environments

Dr. Joni Watson has a profound conversation with Dr. Maurice "Mo" Brownlee, a board-certified HIV specialist and innovative leader in healthcare. Dr. Brownlee shares his transformative approach to healthcare through his development of the Wellness Homes of Chicago, which reimagines patient care environments as comforting, home-like spaces. His model emphasizes the importance of comfort and familiarity, removing traditional clinical barriers to make patients feel at ease and welcomed. He explains his commitment to equity in healthcare, providing equal treatment regardless of a patient’s financial or social status, and extending this inclusive philosophy to his staff as well. Dr. Brownlee’s work is driven by his personal experiences with healthcare disparities and his desire to create an inclusive environment where every patient and staff member feels valued and cared for. This episode explores how personal experiences can inspire profound professional changes that impact community health and wellbeing.

May 1, 2024

Reimagining Nursing Leadership Strategy

Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Dr. Brooke Baldwin, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Oregon Health and Science University Health Care. They explore Brooke’s leadership journey and her strategic vision for nursing, emphasizing professional growth, workforce challenges, and the development of guiding principles for the future. They go deep on Brooke's efforts to address complex healthcare dynamics and her commitment to fostering a resilient and thriving nursing community in various care settings.

April 24, 2024

Redesigning Workflows by Empowering Nurse Voices

Dr. Joni Watson goes deep into the heart of healthcare transformation through the lens of workforce strategy and the redesign of care delivery models. Our guests, Cheryl Denison and Tracy Breece, two nurse informaticists from Mercy Health, share their pioneering journey in leveraging cutting-edge technology and innovative data-driven solutions to enhance nursing workflows and patient care. The discussion revolves around Project ANEW project and its impact on Mercy Health's care delivery model, providing valuable insights into the challenges and triumphs of integrating clinical acumen with technological advancements. Cheryl and Tracy's personal experiences and perspectives shed light on the importance of strategic workforce planning and technological innovation in transforming health care delivery.

April 17, 2024

Crafting Healthcare Culture Change through Storytelling

Joni speaks with Sonna Harding, Chief Nursing Officer for HCA Florida Twin Cities Hospital. With nearly 25 years of nursing leadership, Dr. Harding shares her journey from an ambitious high school student to a distinguished CNO, emphasizing the power of vulnerability, empathy, and storytelling in shaping patient experiences and healthcare culture. Through her personal stories, including a life-changing event involving her husband, Dr. Harding illustrates how narrative can bridge the gap between healthcare professionals and the communities they serve, ultimately fostering a culture of connection, understanding, and compassionate care. This episode is a testament to the transformative potential of leadership that combines strength with softness, and action with listening, offering invaluable lessons for healthcare professionals at all levels.

April 10, 2024

AI Integration Considerations for Nurse Leaders

Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Dr. Michael P. Carey, Jr., an expert at the nexus of nursing, health services research, and artificial intelligence (AI), to discuss the transformative impact of AI on healthcare and nursing practice. Dr. Carey shares insights on overcoming ethical challenges, the necessity for interdisciplinary collaboration, and the crucial role of education in preparing nurses for an AI-enhanced healthcare environment. This episode unveils the potential of AI to advance health equity and improve patient outcomes, highlighting the pivotal role nurse leaders play in guiding the seamless integration of AI technologies into healthcare.

April 3, 2024

Navigating the Quintuple Aim as a Modern Nurse Leader

Dr. Joni Watson hosts Tracy Gosselin, PhD, RN, FAAN, Chief Nursing Executive at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. They dive deep into the Quintuple Aim framework, emphasizing the pivotal role nurses play in healthcare leadership — and how they can effectively navigate through the challenges of care quality, cost, patient experience, clinician experience, and equity. Gosselin shares invaluable insights on the importance of data in addressing health disparities, the evolving landscape of nursing education, and strategies for nurturing a resilient and well-prepared workforce in the face of rising demands and complexities in healthcare.

March 27, 2024

Personal Wellness as a Nursing Leadership Strategy

Dr. Joni Watson speaks with Dr. Tara Kinard, Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Duke University Population Health Management Office and a clinical associate at the Duke University School of Nursing. They explore the critical intersection of nursing leadership, self-care, and education, and the profound impact of personal wellness on professional effectiveness. Dr. Kinard shares her journey through personal challenges, highlighting how prioritizing self-care has been essential in enhancing her decision-making, leadership style, and the ability to support her team and patients. This episode delves into practical strategies for integrating wellness into daily routines, emphasizing its significance in fostering resilience, improving patient care, and advancing nursing practice amidst the complexities of healthcare today.

March 20, 2024

Flexible Strategies to Develop Healthcare Leaders

Dr. Joni Watson sits down with Dr. Nick Escobedo, Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Houston Methodist. Dr. Escobedo shares his visionary approach to leadership in healthcare, emphasizing the importance of cultivating leadership qualities at every level, not solely in formal positions. He discusses his journey, the concept of leadership as a behavior, and the power of mentorship and vulnerability in personal and professional growth. Dr. Escobedo also highlights the critical role of innovation and inclusivity in shaping the future of patient-centered healthcare.

March 13, 2024

Bridging Innovation and Risk Management in Healthcare

Join new host Joni Watson as she explores the forefront of healthcare leadership with Dr. Kelly Larabee-Robke, a visionary in clinical innovation and technology strategy. Delving into the nuances of leadership, Dr. Larabee-Robke shares invaluable insights on nurturing innovation, the critical role of strategic communication, and the challenges and opportunities technology presents in healthcare. Discover how embracing risk and fostering a culture of continuous learning can drive transformative changes in care delivery.

March 6, 2024

Coming Soon: Season 9 of The Handoff!

Meet new host Joni Watson as she dives into what to expect on the upcoming season of The Handoff.

February 28, 2024

Moving the Needle on Engagement: Employee Centric Healthcare

Dr. Dani speaks with Jeff Doucette, SVP & Chief Nursing Officer at Press Ganey. Today, they discuss trends in the nursing workforce in recent years, the impact of an engaged nurse leader, and how key subsets of resilience can be used by leaders to support the front-line.

October 25, 2023

Beyond the Surface: The Hidden Potential of Ambient Data

Dani speaks with Dr. Dana Womack, healthcare informatics consultant. Together, they discuss her pivotal career moments before diving into the power of harnessing ambient data, or ‘digital dust’, and turning it into clinical practice insights. They also cover the concepts of resilience engineering and adaptive capacity in nursing.

October 18, 2023

Beyond the Procedure: The Human Connection in Anesthesia

Dr. Dani speaks with Dr. Angela DiDonato, Associate Program Director of the Nurse Anesthesia Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. They discuss creative approaches to prepare advanced practice nurses, nurse legislation & advocacy, and planning for and supporting career mobility for nurses.

October 11, 2023

Nurturing Innovation: Nurses Leading Change in Healthcare

Dani speaks with Chelsea Rolfes & Sarah Gray, Founding Clinicians of Trusted Health, transitioned from direct patient care to building and scaling a high-growth company tackling the nursing shortage and enabling health systems to transform their workforces. Together, they discuss their transition, learnings and successes, advice for nurses, and perspectives on the future of nursing.

October 4, 2023

Voices of Healthcare: Learning from Patient Experiences with Symplr’s Experts

Dani speaks with Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer & Ali Morin, Vice President of Nursing Informatics, at Symplr. Together, they discuss Karlene & Ali’s work with AONL to prepare leaders for digital transformation, as well as the challenges of technology in nursing today. They also cover the past, present, and future of the CNIO role.

September 28, 2023

The Healing Touch: Elevating Patient Experience

Dani speaks with Dr. Desi McCue, Senior Director of Operations at The Center for Women’s Health at Oregon Health & Science University and current President of Northwest Organization of Nurse Leaders. They discuss workplace violence and the impact of tailored programs and mindset shifts on improved outcomes, nurse staffing laws, pathway to leadership, and how professional organizations shaped her as a nurse leader.

September 20, 2023

Nursing at the Cutting Edge: Leadership, Acuity, and the Future

Dani speaks with Nancy Blake, Chief Nursing Officer at Los Angeles General Medical Center. They discuss key components of leadership, from building currency as a leader and establishing a healthy work environment to navigating transformation and investment in development programs. They also discuss pivotal moments in Nancy’s career and her perspectives on the innovations that the future of nursing needs.

September 13, 2023

From Hospital to Home: Changing the Way We Heal

Dr. Dani Bowie speaks with Kasey Paulus, SVP of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Executive at WellSpan Health. They discuss pivotal moments that shaped her career, the launching of Hospital at Home & a virtual care unit at WellSpan, developing a workforce for those new care delivery models, and the importance of focusing on employee well-being.

September 6, 2023

Workflow Wonders: How AI Can Streamline Healthcare

Dani speaks with Ajay Gupta, public health innovator & founder and CEO of HSR.health, a geospatial data analytics company that supports public health and emergency response communities. They discuss emerging healthcare tech and trends, from quantum computing to the role of AI in healthcare and how innovation courage can propel us to achieve the change he wishes to see.

August 30, 2023

From Fearful to Fearing Less: Navigating Relational Leadership in Nursing

Dani speaks with Roseanne Raso, Chief Nursing Officer at New York-Presbyterian Medical Center, and Editor-in-Chief of Nursing Management. They discuss the core concepts of a culture of inquiry and the key differences between being fearless and fearing less in leadership. They also cover relationship leadership, its impact on a healthy work environment, and how leaders can translate leadership research into practice.

August 23, 2023

Healthcare’s New Horizon: A People-Centric Approach to Digital Transformation

Dani speaks with Nanne Finis, Chief Nurse Executive of UKG. They discuss the importance of nursing leadership in digital transformation, the emergence of technology competencies for nurse executives, new innovative care models, and the need to get back to the basics and focus on the foundations.

August 16, 2023

From Me to We: Redefining Teamwork in Modern Healthcare

Dani speaks with Rose Sherman, a nationally recognized thought leader and keynote speaker on nursing and healthcare leadership. They discuss universal trends - from the nursing shortage to the increasing span of control of nurse leaders and cover what nursing leaders should be focusing on, what we should stop doing, and how adopting alternative mindsets can help nursing leaders through a new reality. They also discuss team-based care, the focus of Dr. Sherman’s recent book, and some of the promising staffing innovations that need to be accelerated and more widely adopted.

August 9, 2023

Coming Soon: Season 8 of The Handoff!

We're back with an all-new season of The Handoff! Listen in as Dr. Dani Bowie tells you what to expect this time around.

August 2, 2023

Innovating the Nursing Workforce: Texas Children’s Hospital’s Success Story

In the final episode of season seven, Dani speaks with Jackie Ward, the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). Jackie shares her insights on developing a strong nursing workforce, supporting frontline nurses and managers, and fostering a culture of growth and retention. She highlights TCH's efforts to maintain an efficient workforce during the pandemic, including innovative nursing roles, partnerships, and flexible scheduling. Jackie emphasizes the importance of wellness, work-life harmony, and professional advancement in shaping the future of the nursing profession. Tune in to learn about the inspiring story of TCH and the impact of collaboration and innovation in nursing. And don't miss Dani's note about season eight!

May 24, 2023

Revolutionizing Healthcare Staffing with Flexibility, Innovation, and Technology

Dani is joined by Dr. Kristin Shelley, Senior Consultant of Workforce Management at Trinity Health. Kristin shares her experiences with workforce flexibility, international nurses, incentive programs, and technology implementation in healthcare. Kristin discusses the impact of hiring hiring international nurses, and details a revised incentive program she helped launch.

May 17, 2023

Embracing Innovation and Driving Change in Healthcare

Dani speaks with Bryan Sisk, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Memorial Hermann Health System, to discuss their transformative work in the healthcare industry. Bryan shares insights about the Memorial Hermann Nursing Institute, which is designed to accelerate innovation and support nurses in their professional development. He also highlights their community-centric approach, with a focus on impacting health holistically through unique programs, initiatives, and partnerships. Bryan calls for nurses to embrace their roles as innovators and problem solvers in the ever-evolving healthcare landscape.

May 10, 2023

How AI and Machine Learning are Transforming Nursing

Dani welcomes Brian Weirich, the System Chief Nursing Informatics Officer for Banner Health. Brian shares his thoughts on the future of nursing, and how technology can reduce the burden on nurses and improve the overall healthcare experience. Brian shares his experiences in developing a natural language processing tool that can help reduce the documentation burden on nurses and automate some of the physical tasks they are responsible for. He emphasizes the need for human oversight in this process and acknowledges that technology can never replace critical thinking in nursing. He also shares his passion for the importance of being a lifelong learner.

May 3, 2023

Nurses in Politics: Healing the Political Landscape

Dani speaks with Lisa Summers and Kimberly Gordon, the cofounders of Healing Politics, a nonprofit dedicated to getting more nurses into elected office. Hear how nurses' experiences in clinical settings, their ability to establish trust, and their systems thinking make them ideal candidates for elected positions. Lisa and Kimberly also share stories of nurse legislators, emphasizing the importance of health considerations in policy-making. The conversation highlights the need for mentorship, support, and civic engagement among the nursing community to amplify their voice and promote positive change in the political environment. Join us as we dive into the world of nursing and politics, and envision a future where nurses can bring healing and innovative solutions to a divided political landscape.

April 26, 2023

Lessons in Self-Care, Burnout Prevention, and Team Support

Dani speaks with Rudy Jackson, the Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin. Rudy talks about the challenges faced by healthcare leaders in providing flexibility to their nursing staff, while also meeting the needs of patients. He discusses the importance of self-scheduling and work-life balance, as well as the need to stay informed and up-to-date with changes in healthcare. Rudy emphasizes the importance of listening to frontline staff and supporting them in finding solutions to problems. We dive deep into the challenges faced by healthcare organizations in providing high-quality care while also supporting their staff.

April 19, 2023

Flexibility, Technology, and the Future of Nursing

Aries Limbaga is the CEO of Rancho Amigos National Rehabilitation Center and System Chief Nursing Officer. He joins Dani to discuss his career journey, the importance of flexibility in nursing, and the implementation of a new staffing model. Aries shares how his immigrant background and passion for serving marginalized populations led him to the county's health services. He also discusses the aging nursing workforce and the importance of attracting and retaining new talent through residency programs and flexible staffing solutions. Aries also emphasizes the potential benefits of technology in creating more nimble scheduling processes.

April 12, 2023

The Lavender Journey: Revolutionizing Mental Health Care in a Pandemic

In this insightful episode, Dani shares inspiring story of Lavender, a mental health practice that was founded and launched in just 45 days during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-founders Brighid Gannon (DNP, PMHNP-BC) and Pritma Dhillon-Chattha (DNP, MHA, RN) share their journey of starting from scratch, creating a unique and accessible mental health service that combines psychotherapy and medication management in a single appointment. They discuss their nurse-founded and nurse-operated business model, the challenges and advantages of remote work, and their vision for the future of nursing and mental health care. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in mental health, nursing, entrepreneurship, and the rapidly changing landscape of healthcare.

April 5, 2023

Balancing Staffing, Retention, and Innovation in Nursing

Rex Lomboy joins Dan to discuss the Integrated Resource Center's mission to put people in the right place at the right time — while easing the way for nursing leaders. Discover how the center manages schedules across multiple hospitals, leverages data and technology to optimize staffing, and addresses challenges faced by nurses. We explore the importance of partnership and collaboration with various stakeholders, from nursing staff to IT and human resources. Learn about the evolving staffing model, the role of per diem and contract labor, and how Providence's Traveler Conversion Playbook aims to turn temporary workers into long-term assets. Rex also shares insights on remaining open to change, adopting innovation, and the power of community in advancing the profession of nursing.

March 29, 2023

Moving Beyond Linear Approaches to Nursing Staffing

Gladys and Dani discuss the nursing workforce and the impact of an overemphasis on symptom management. Gladys explains the importance of nurses looking upstream to find the root cause of problems in the workforce. She argues that nursing is reducing itself to a series of tasks and ignoring other important factors like job growth, autonomy, recognition, and pride in work. Gladys also discusses the impact of contract labor on nursing, and how nurses could follow the lead of physicians and set up their own practice groups to increase flexibility and specialization.

March 22, 2023

Staffing Standards and Delivering Quality Patient Care

Brie Sandow, the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nursing Officer at St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center, discusses the importance of understanding seasonality and the benefits of using a closed calendar year to inform staffing. She highlights the importance of communication, and dives deep into the problems with attempting to legislate staffing standards and ratios, and the need to focus on data, analytics, and experts to best determine scheduling and staffing.

March 15, 2023

Service, Excellence, Advocacy, and Leadership: Jefferson Health’s SEAL Team

Dani Bowie, the new host of The Handoff, speaks with Daniel Hudson, the Vice President of Nursing Administration and Operations for Jefferson Health. Daniel tells Dani about Jefferson Health's SEAL team, which stands for Service, Excellence, Advocacy, and Leadership. It's a team of flexible nurses who work across Jefferson's clinical enterprise, including its 18 hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The SEAL team approach offers nurses the flexibility to move around and work in different environments while still having a home within the team — with great compensation. Daniel also shares details on Jefferson Health's upcoming virtual care pilot program, which will involve SEAL nurses as dual-licensed virtual nurses. The program aims to augment care delivery rather than replace it, and will focus on improving nursing care planning, patient education, and discharges, among other things. The organization is looking at various KPIs to measure the program's success, including documentation time, nurse and healthcare team retention, and patient experience. Daniel also shares his thoughts on flexible scheduling, and the varied needs of different nurses and how best to accommodate them. It's a great conversation to kick off this exciting new season of The Handoff. Please rate and review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen!

March 8, 2023

Coming Soon: Season 7 — Workforce and Staffing Innovations

Host Dani Bowie shares a quick teaser for the upcoming season of The Handoff, launching March 8, 2023 — available wherever you get your podcasts.

March 1, 2023

Essential skills for the contemporary nurse leader

Our guest for our last episode of this season is Bonnie Clipper, a nurse futurist and thought leader, a former chief nurse executive, a fellow at the American Academy of Nursing, a startup coach, a consultant, a faculty member at multiple schools of nursing and the Chief Clinical Officer at Wambi. Bonnie is a repeat visitor who came on the show last season to chat with Dan about the future of nursing in a conversation that got pretty spirited at times but seemed to resonate with many of you, as it became our most downloaded episode ever. Today she’s back to talk specifically about the skill set, attitude and competencies that nurse leaders need to survive in a post-COVID world based on her experience consulting and working with a variety of hospitals around the country. Links to recommended reading: Episode 73: A candid conversation about the state of nursing The Nurse's Guide to Innovation: Accelerating the Journey The Nurse Manager's Guide to an Intergenerational Workforce The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/bonnie-clipper-nurse-leader

December 21, 2022

How an endurance athlete used her training to lead through COVID-19

Our guest for today’s episode was just weeks into her new role as a nurse leader at Lehigh Valley Health Network when COVID-19 hit. Nichole Persing turned to her experience as an Ironman and an endurance athlete in order to cope with the logistical, physical and emotional challenges of managing an ICU in the middle of a once-in-a-generation pandemic. She and Dan talk about the team-based approach to nursing that she pioneered to manage severe understaffing on her unit and how she’s navigated her own mental health struggles coming out of the worst of the pandemic. Links to recommended reading: The Strength to Heal The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/nichole-persing-endurance

December 14, 2022

Why every nurse leader needs a leadership manifesto

Our guest for this episode is Joni Watson, a healthcare and leadership consultant who also teaches Advanced Decision Making in Healthcare for PhDs at Duke University’s School of Nursing. She was also previously the Senior Vice President for Strategic Nursing Transformation at Ascension, where she and Dan worked together. In this conversation, Dan and Joni talk about how she crafted her thoughtful and deliberate approach to nursing leadership. She shares why she thinks that every leader should have a manifesto, and how hers has helped her identify and stay true to her values over her two decade long nursing career. She also talks about the concept of a “challenge network,” why they’re important and how she cultivates one at work. Links to recommended reading: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business The Future of Nursing 2020-2030 The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/joni-watson-leadership-manifesto

December 7, 2022

A deep dive into essential nurse leader competencies

Our guest for this week is Josh Wymer: an all-star nurse leader with deep expertise in change management, information governance, and digital innovation. Josh is currently the Chief Health Information Officer for the San Diego Market at Defense Health, and is also pursuing his Doctor of Nursing Practice in Executive Leadership program at Johns Hopkins, where he is looking at the impact of specialty certification in the context of professional development and impact on nursing practice. He and Dan cover a range of issues related to nurse leadership, with a deep dive into the eight essential nurse leader competencies, how they’ve evolved in light of the pandemic, and which one Josh thinks is the most important. Links to recommended reading: Preparing nurse leaders for 2020 Nursing Leadership and COVID-19: Defining the Shadows and Leading Ahead of the Data Progressing toward specialty certification as the National Standard for Nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/josh-wymer-nurse-leader-competencies

November 30, 2022

What nurse leaders need to know about payers

In today’s episode, we’re talking about a subject that we haven’t really gotten into in the previous five seasons of the show: the payer side of healthcare and its impact on nurses. Our guest, Judy Kunisch, has a lot of experience – and a lot of opinions on this topic – and even Dan learned quite a bit during their discussion. Judy is a former bedside nurse turned vice president for a Fortune 100 insurance company turned consultant who primarily works with payers and is passionate about serving as a bridge between those two worlds. She believes that nurses don’t have enough exposure to this side of the business and she wants to change that. Today she gives us a deep dive on the evolution of value-based payments and how they intersect with nursing, as well as how nurse leaders can use this information to make the case for more resources within their organization. Links to recommended reading: What are the value-based programs? Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) Systems Thinking for Strategic Leadership The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/judy-kunisch-payers

November 23, 2022

The state of healthcare recruiting

Our guest for this episode is one of the leading voices in LinkedIn on all things healthcare recruitment and she has some strong opinions about today’s hiring market and what both sides need to do to succeed. Krista Whiting is the Vice President of Healthcare Recruitment for Parkwood International, where she specializes in acute care leadership in Southern Texas. Today she and Dan talk about what candidates can do to stand in the hiring process, including those with non-traditional backgrounds, the skill she’s seeing more and more hospitals look for and her advice to hiring managers on how to get talent in the door faster. Links to recommended reading: Karaoke for a Cause Understanding & Addressing Nurse Turnover A Look into Retaining Your Nursing Workforce Forecasting Hospital Hiring Needs The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/krista-whiting-healthcare-recruiting

November 16, 2022

A new approach to addressing violence against nurses

According to a survey put out by Trusted Health earlier this year, half of all nurses have been the subject of an attack, intimidation or assault by a patient or patient’s family member since the start of the pandemic. Our guest for today’s episode, Mel Cortez, experienced this first hand working in a Baltimore area ICU. Later, when she saw how many nurses were leaving the profession because of workplace violence, she was inspired to start Cortex Gold, a joint venture between two nurses and a Marine Corps veteran whose mission is to help hospitals create a safer, more secure workplace for nurses and other healthcare workers. Today she and Dan talk about what a culture of safety actually looks like, Mel’s protocol-based approach to handling incidents of violence and the role that nurse managers and nurse leaders play in making hospitals a safer place to work. Links to recommended reading: Fact Sheet: Health Care Workplace Violence and Intimidation, and the Need for a Federal Legislative Response Toolkit for Mitigating Violence in the Workplace The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/mel-cortez-violence-against-nurses

November 9, 2022

A 25 year Kaiser Permanente veteran shares his journey

Welcome back to Season 6 of The Handoff. In today’s episode, Dan speaks with Rayne Soriano. Rayne has carved out his own path in nursing and continually leaned into his passions in order to build a career that is uniquely suited to him. After an incredible 25 years at Kaiser Permanente, Rayne is currently the Regional Director for Operations and Nursing Professional Practice at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii. It’s a role that weaves together his interests and skill sets in education, leadership, informatics, operations and management, and in this conversation, he and Dan touch on all of those topics. Rayne shares how he’s seeing data, technology and informatics impact the profession of nursing, from new grads all the way up to nurse leaders, as well as how living in Hawaii has impacted his experience of being a nurse and how Kaiser is thinking about staffing and scheduling. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/rayne-soriano-kaiser-veteran

November 1, 2022

New data on the state of nurse mental health

To close out season 5 of The Handoff we’re actually welcoming back a repeat visitor to the show. Dani Bowie joined us last season to talk about scheduling and staffing, and since that conversation, she’s actually joined the team at Trusted Health as their Vice President of Clinical Strategy & Transformation, where she’s helping health systems transform their nursing workforce programs. We’re very happy to welcome her back to the show today to talk about a topic that is very close to both our hearts: nurse mental health. For the third year in a row, Trusted Health is releasing its annual survey on frontline nurse mental health and well-being and Dani and Dan talked about the findings, as well as her thoughts on what the nurse leaders, hospitals and the industry as a whole can do to address the issues raised. Links to recommended reading: 2022 Trusted Health Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey Episode 65: Solving the “travesty” that is nurse scheduling Nurse Staffing Think Tank: Priority Topics and Recommendations The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/mental-health-survey-2022

July 20, 2022

What’s next for nurses at the country’s largest public health system

Our guest for this episode oversees more than 8,000 nurses in her role as the Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive for NYC Health + Hospitals. In this conversation, Dan and Natalia Cineas talk about what’s next for the country’s largest public health system coming out of the most acute phase of the pandemic. Like so many other nurse leaders, one of the things that’s top of mind for Natalia is recruiting, and she shares how she’s trying to bolster her nursing workforce and encourage nurses to think about a career in a public system. She also shares why she’s thinking differently about informatics these days, how her approach to staffing and benefits is changing and what she thinks other health systems can learn from NYC Health + Hospitals. Links to recommended reading: Nurse Staffing Think Tank: Priority Topics and Recommendations NYC Health + Hospitals Careers The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/natalia-cineas

June 29, 2022

An emerging nurse leader shares her thoughts on the profession

Our guest for this episode is Casey Green, also known as “Critical Care Casey.” Casey has been a critical care nurse for seven years working in the emergency department, various ICUs, and critical care ground transport nursing. She is also a LinkedIn Top Nursing Voice, as well as a clinical instructor. Last year, Casey became only the 85th nurse ever to obtain all five emergency nursing certifications. In her conversation with Dan, they talk about what she’s hearing from new grads entering the profession and what nurse leaders need to do to support these individuals at such a challenging and pivotal time in the profession. They also talk about why Casey is passionate about certifications and how she encourages other nurses to pursue them, as well as how she feels about stepping into the nurse manager role for the first time. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/casey-green

June 23, 2022

A conversation with “America’s Favorite Nurse”

Our guest for this episode is Alice Benjamin, a board-certified Clinical Nurse Specialist and Family Nurse Practitioner, as well as an author, podcast host, health advocate and a regular on-air medical contributor for CNBC, Dr. Oz, The Doctors, CNN and the BBC. Alice’s career as a nurse was inspired by the death of her father from a heart attack when she was a child. Since then she’s been on a mission to educate and empower the public about the pursuit of health and wellness. Alice was the first nurse to chair the American Heart Association Health Equity Taskforce, as well as the first black nurse to serve on the California board of directors for the American Nurses Association. Today she and Dan talk about her career, the portrayal of nurses in the media and patient safety. As a nurse who is still at the bedside and in the wake of the Randa Vaughnt case, this is a topic that Alice is particularly passionate about, and they get into the frequency of near misses in healthcare, why the “just get it done” culture of nursing is ripe for errors, and how nurses can engage with hospital leadership to help create a safer environment for everyone. Links to recommended reading: Ask Nurse Alice Episode 62: Creating a strong culture of patient safety The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/nurse-alice

June 15, 2022

California’s nursing workforce strategy

Our guest for this episode is Garrett Chan, the President & CEO of Healthimpact, the nursing policy center for the state of California. Garrett and his team partner with other nursing organizations, health care providers, academic institutions and policy makers to build the nursing profession and support the 400,000 nurses working in the state of California. Today he and Dan talk about Healthimpact’s workforce strategy, including pipeline building, transition to practice, mental health support for nurses and streamlining the state’s licensure process, as well as what the state is doing to meet the growing need for nurses in rural areas. Links to recommended reading: Healthimpact Resources California Newly Licensed RN Employment Survey Research Report Innovation Landscape — Solving Shortages: How Technology Can Help Meet California’s Immediate Health Workforce Needs Episode 51: How COVID-19 has impacted the nursing workforce Episode 68: The unique challenges of nursing on a remote island chain The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/garrett-chan

June 8, 2022

How UCLA’s Chief Nurse Executive maintains a high-performing culture

Our guest for this episode is Karen Grimley, Chief Nurse Executive at UCLA Health and Assistant Dean for the UCLA School of Nursing. In this interview, Karen and Dan talk about the innovations that the UCLA staff developed during COVID, how Karen maintains a high-performing culture and how she’s planning to lead coming out of the pandemic. Karen also shares how she’s thinking about staffing and scheduling and the concept of flexible work at UCLA, how you can maintain best practices around shared governance in a time of crisis. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/karen-grimley

June 1, 2022

A candid conversation about the state of nursing

Our guest for this episode has her hands in so many things, it’s difficult to even know where to start. Bonnie Clipper is a nurse futurist and thought leader, a former chief nurse executive, a fellow at the American Academy of Nursing, a startup coach, a consultant, a faculty member at multiple schools of nursing on two different continents, the Chief Clinical Officer at Wambi, and someone who is deeply passionate about bringing innovation to the field of nursing. Most of all, she is a close friend and someone I love chatting with about the profession. Today we tackle some weighty topics, including retention, workforce management, applying more technology and automation to nursing, and why she’s no longer a fan of Florence Nightingale. Links to recommended reading: The Nurse's Guide to Innovation: Accelerating the Journey The Nurse Manager's Guide to an Intergenerational Workforce Trusted Works The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/bonnie-clipper

May 24, 2022

How this nurse leader forged her own path

Our guest for this episode realized early on in her career as a nurse executive that a traditional health system career path was not for her. Since then she’s done everything from work as a clinical professor in a college of nursing, serve as the president of a state nursing board, write a number of nursing textbooks, and consult with hospitals and health systems on innovation and leadership. Given the depth and breadth of Kathy Malloch’s career, it makes sense that her conversation with Dan would be similarly wide-ranging. Today they talk about where education for nurse leaders can improve, the tool sets that are needed in complex systems, how Kathy handled cases involving medical errors when she was the president of the Arizona State Board of Nursing and what she sees as the obligation of nurses to continually advance their skills and the profession. Links to recommended reading: Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare Quantum Leadership: Creating Sustainable Value in Health Care: Creating Sustainable Value in Health Care Leadership in Nursing Practice: Changing the Landscape of Health Care: Changing the Landscape of Health Care Appreciative Leadership: Building Sustainable Partnerships for Health: Building Sustainable Partnerships for Health Arizona Board of Nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/kathy-malloch

May 18, 2022

Why nurse leaders need to understand how to use data

Our guest for this episode has the kind of career path that is close to Dr. Nurse Dan’s heart. Rich Kenny started his career in the emergency department before eventually becoming a flight nurse for Duke University Health System. Along the way he discovered that he had both an interest in and a knack for working with data, and specifically how to make data more useful to nurses in their every day. He eventually left the bedside to work in a variety of operational, informatics and innovation roles before landing at SAS, where he’s an executive advisor on the Healthcare Strategy, Support, & Innovation team. Today we talk about all things data and informatics, and how they have the power to change the patient experience, improve working conditions for nurses and help move the healthcare industry forward. Rich also shares why he thinks that every nurse leader needs to be able to use data and information to lead well. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/rich-kenny

May 11, 2022

How one educator is creating the nurse leaders of tomorrow

Our guest for this episode is Sandra Davidson, Dean, Professor and Deputy Provost of the Faculty of Nursing at University of Calgary. Sandra is a long-time educator and shares my passion for bringing innovation and disruption to nursing leadership. She’s currently developing a new doctoral program for the University of Calgary that will offer an applied degree aimed at educating and growing the healthcare leaders of the future. Today we talk about how she and her colleagues are taking the learnings of the pandemic and using them to make nursing education better, more flexible and more student-centric. Sandra shares why she thinks that a relational approach to leadership makes sense, and her advice to frontline nurses who are interested in pursuing leadership roles. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/sandra-davidson

May 4, 2022

How Johns Hopkins manages its contingent nursing workforce

Our guest for today’s episode oversees what she calls a one-stop shop for nurse staffing within Johns Hopkins. Built 30 years ago as an internal float pool, Johns Hopkins Intrastaff is now both a VMS and a fully licensed staffing agency that manages thousands of nursing contracts for the health system. Its executive director, Laura Fricker, speaks with Dan about all things contingent staffing, including how she thinks about pricing and finding a rate that makes sense in the current market, and the unique benefits that Johns Hopkins is able to offer to its nurses. Laura also shares why she thinks nursing is becoming more respected as the technical profession that it is and why it will be valued differently in the future. Links to recommended reading: Leadership in Nursing Practice: The Intersection of Innovation and Teamwork in Healthcare Systems The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/laura-fricker

April 27, 2022

The unique challenges of nursing on a remote island chain

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

April 20, 2022

How do we teach nurses to be anti-racist?

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

April 13, 2022

The Handoff Season 5: Coming Soon

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!

April 9, 2022

What keeps a healthcare economist up at night

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

November 17, 2021

Solving the “travesty” that is nurse scheduling

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

November 10, 2021

A deep dive into moral injury

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

November 3, 2021

Overcoming a stroke and finding a career in nursing

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

October 26, 2021

Creating a strong culture of patient safety

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

October 20, 2021

What does the post-pandemic nursing workforce look like?

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

October 6, 2021

How to become a culturally competent nurse leader

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

September 29, 2021

Becoming an “ends of the earth leader”

“It starts with you, but it’s not about you.” That’s the mantra of today’s guests when it comes to nurse leadership. Dr. Lucy Leclerc and Dr. Kay Kennedy are passionate about helping nurse leaders improve their skills by focusing first on personal transformation, and they have a book on this topic coming out before the end of the year. Lucy and Kay’s work is inspired by the idea that healthcare leadership is distinct from other industries and requires a new approach that is evidence based and human centered. In this episode, they talk with Dan about qualities of the “end of earth leader” — the person who inspires their employees to follow them anywhere -- why nurse leaders need to think about self-care as a discipline, and why it’s okay not to have all of the answers Links to recommended reading: Human-Centered Leadership in Healthcare (Book Pre-Order) Human-Centered Leadership: Creating Change From the Inside Out Human-centred leadership in health care: A contemporary nursing leadership theory generated via constructivist grounded theory Human-Centered Leadership in Health Care An Idea That’s Time Has Come AACN Healthy Work Environments Assessment Tool The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lucy-kay

September 22, 2021

Closing the education-practice gap in nursing

Our guest for this episode has spent his entire career in healthcare education, trying to close the gap between education and practice and give clinicians and healthcare leaders the skills they need to be successful. Today, Geoffrey Roche is a Senior Vice President at Dignity Health Global Education, where he helps create professional development and higher education programs that are shaped by the current, real-world needs of hospitals. In his conversation with Dan, Geoffrey shares the latest themes that he’s seeing in academia and healthcare leadership, what today’s nursing students are looking for from their education, and why the healthcare industry needs to do more to foster and engage the next generation of leaders. Links to recommended reading: Dignity Health Global Education Equity Impact Scholarship Dignity Health Global Education Certificate in Nurse Leadership The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/geoffrey-roche

September 14, 2021

The insidious role of organizational violence in nursing

Workplace violence against nurses has been a longstanding issue, particularly in the ED. A landmark study published by the Emergency Nurses Association in 2011 found that more than half of emergency nurses had been the victim of workplace violence in the preceding seven days, and a third had considered leaving the profession as a direct result. My guest today is a 20-year veteran of the ED and the Director of the Institute of Emergency Nursing Research who brings her training as an anthropologist to the study of nursing culture and how it contributes to the various forms of workplace violence. In this conversation, Dr. Lisa Wolf and I discuss her definition of workplace violence, which includes not just violence perpetrated by patients, but also organizational violence and the role that it plays in creating a culture of aggression and withholding. Dr. Wolf shares insights from her significant research on this topic, as well as strategies for nurse leaders to address it within their organizations. Links to recommended reading: Workplace Violence by Vaughan Bowie Nothing Changes, Nobody Cares: Understanding the Experience of Emergency Nurses Physically or Verbally Assaulted While Providing Care Violence Against Nurses Working in US Emergency Departments Guiding Principles: Mitigating Violence in the Workplace The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lisa-wolf

September 8, 2021

The Handoff Season 4: Coming Soon

The Handoff will return from summer break in September with a brand new season. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the nursing profession into a new and uncertain chapter. Nurses have never played a more vital role in our healthcare system, but they’ve also never faced more challenges, including burnout and mental health issues, massive generational differences amongst nurses, staff shortages and structural racism. We've been hard at work lining up guests who can speak to how nurse leaders can cope with these challenges, while managing their own career progression, leadership abilities and mental well-being. We'll hope you'll tune in!

August 18, 2021

Special Pride Month Episode: Revisiting Our Conversation With James Simmons

In honor of Pride Month, we're re-releasing our interview with Dr. James Simmons, a nurse practitioner and thought leader who has appeared everywhere from Good Morning America to CBS and NBC to People magazine. He’s also amassed a large social following on Twitter and Instagram, where he answers health-related questions from the public at the handle @AsktheNP. James is an outspoken advocate of both the Black and LGBTQ+ communities, and in his conversation with Dr. Nurse Dan, he talks candidly about the inequities that the pandemic has laid bare, and why “going back to normal” isn’t an option for these individuals. In this episode, James speaks plainly about how the system has let down and left out these communities and what nurses and nurse leaders can do to make a difference moving forward. Links to recommended reading: Meet James Simmons of Ask The NP in Greater LA Nurse Practitioner Documents Getting The COVID Vaccine - What To Expect Healthcare and Cultural Considerations for Patients How Nurses Can Help Dismantle Racial Healthcare Disparity The Handoff Episode 44: Making nursing more diverse The Handoff Episode 45: What the ANA is doing to combat racism in nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/james-simmons

June 16, 2021

A candid conversation about mental health

We’re wrapping up season three of the show with a very special episode in honor of Nurses Week 2021 and Mental Health Awareness Month. Joining Dr. Nurse Dan are two very special nurses who have been working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic: Tayler Oakes and Tina Vinsant. Tayler, Tina and Dan had a very candid conversation about what the last year has been like for them, how their mental health and overall well-being has been impacted and what they wish their facilities and the healthcare system as a whole would do differently to support nurses. We also had a chance to get Tina and Tayler’s reactions to Trusted Health’s second annual study on frontline nurse mental health and well-being, which looks at how the pandemic has impacted nurses, their career plans and their commitment to nursing Links to recommended reading: 2021 Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey Recognizing and Avoiding Nurse Burnout The Sound of Silence: The Occurrence of PTSD in Nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/tina-tayler

May 5, 2021

Why we need a paradigm shift when it comes to nurse mental health

Our guest for this episode is one of the leading voices in the conversation around clinician mental health. Dr. Bernadette Melnyk is the Vice President for Health Promotion, the University Chief Wellness Officer, and the dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She is nationally recognized as an expert on evidence-based approaches to a wide range of healthcare and wellness challenges. She and Dr. Nurse Dan talk about how nurses are coping as the COVID-19 pandemic passes the one year mark, and why Dr. Melnyk thinks there is a mental health crisis lurking in our healthcare workforce. She shares her thoughts on the evidence-based techniques that can improve nurses’ well-being, the role of skills building and cognitive behavioral therapy in treating anxiety and depression, and why the idea that resiliency is an innate trait is a myth. Dr. Melnyk also shares her thoughts on why wellness leadership is so important in healthcare, academia and corporate America, and why we need to change our healthcare paradigm from sick care to well care. Links to recommended reading: The Ohio State University College of Nursing Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being Trusted Health & Ohio State University College of Nursing Wellness Partner Program Trusted Health Mental Health Resource Center The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/bernadette-melnyk

April 27, 2021

A healthier approach to nurse leadership

Our guests for this episode are pushing healthcare leaders to shed their old ideas about leadership and develop a new, healthier and more collaborative approach to managing teams and facilitating change. Dr. Kathy Scott and Bridget Sarikas are the founders of L3 Fusion, a boutique consulting firm whose approach is informed by their dual clinical and business expertise. They are also the co-authors of the new book “Stupid Gone Viral,” which proposes a novel approach to leadership that is centered on science, experimentation and humor. Bridget, Kathy and Dr. Nurse Dan talk about the importance of prioritizing one’s own physical, mental and spiritual well-being before attempting to lead, why top-down leadership needs to end, and strategies for developing trust and communication within your organization. They talk about their concepts of “grit and grace” in leadership, as well as their preference for “kindness before rightness” in communication. Kathy is a former bedside nurse who has served in a variety of C-level positions within healthcare organizations, and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. Bridget is an expert in process improvement, financial planning and analysis, investor relations and communication, and has served in executive roles at organizations like Southcoast Health and Howard University Links to recommended reading: L3 Fusion Stupid Gone Viral The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/kathy-bridget

April 21, 2021

Should you consider a career in advanced practice nursing?

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Scharmaine Lawson, a nationally recognized and award-winning nurse practitioner. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and a winner of New Orleans magazine’s Healthcare Hero award. Dr. Lawson has a thriving housecall practice in New Orleans, which she started in 2004. She takes a non-traditional, holistic approach to care, seeking to gain a deeper understanding of her patients’ lifestyles through the unique insights that in-home care provides. She is also passionate about exposing young children to advanced practice nursing and is the author of a book series entitled Nola The Nurse. She and Dan talk about everything from how her housecall practice has evolved in the time of COVID, what inspired her to write a children’s book, and her advice for nurses trying to decide whether advanced practice is right for them. Links to recommended reading: Dr. Lawson NP - Medical Housecall Training, Housecalls Nola the Nurse The Ultimate Advanced Practice Nursing Guide The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/scharmaine-lawson

April 14, 2021

How the pandemic changed Mercy’s approach to nurse staffing forever

The pandemic has upended many things in healthcare, one of which is the way we think about nurse staffing. Our guest for this episode is Betty Jo Rocchio, Senior Vice President & System Chief Nursing Officer for Mercy. Mercy has been in the midst of rolling out a new hub-based approach to their nursing workforce that allows them to more flexibly staff up and down with full-time and contingent nurses. During the pandemic, Mercy organized its workforce around regional pods and used a data-driven approach that allowed them to more easily move nurses through the system to meet the needs of different regions. Betty Jo details their process, how it will be used moving forward and how she thinks the pandemic has changed what nurses want from their jobs. Links to recommended reading: Mercy Nursing Careers Travel Nursing Basics The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/bettyjo-rocchio

April 8, 2021

How COVID-19 has impacted the nursing workforce

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Joanne Spetz, a professor of Health Policy Studies, Family and Community Medicine, and Nursing at UCSF. She’s also a researcher who focuses on the economics of the healthcare workforce, and her insights into the nursing workforce are more relevant than ever in the midst of a pandemic that has stretched our supply of nurses to the breaking point. In this conversation, Joanne talks with Dr. Nurse Dan about the trends she’s seeing across the profession, including a disturbing acceleration of retirements and nurses leaving the workforce. She previews insights from the bi-annual study she does in partnership with the California Board of Nursing, which looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the state’s nurses this year. Joanne also shares her thoughts on how we can better use data to inform everything from healthcare policy to education to hiring and training. Links to recommended reading: Forecasts of the Registered Nurse Workforce in California (2019) Survey of Registered Nurses - California Board of Nursing (2018) Additional California Board of Nursing reports The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/joanne-spetz

March 31, 2021

Building resilience in the face of moral suffering

In recent years, the issues of moral injury and moral suffering have become widely discussed within the field of nursing. These conversations have taken on particular urgency as the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many nurses to death and patient suffering on an unprecedented scale. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Cynda Rushton, a Professor of Clinical Ethics at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and School of Nursing. After beginning her career in the pediatric ICU, Dr. Rushton became acutely aware of the moral suffering that clinicians face in the course of doing their jobs -- suffering that she says often goes unacknowledged. She eventually decided to pursue a career in bioethics, and has dedicated her professional life to helping nurses and nurse leaders find ways to build their resilience. In her conversation with Dan, Dr. Rushton talks about the interventions that she thinks can best help nurses meet the unique challenges that come from working at the bedside today and how to maintain their integrity in the face of moral suffering. Links to recommended reading: Moral Resilience Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare Johns Hopkins Institute of Bioethics How Johns Hopkins University Improved Nurse Resilience by Addressing Moral Distress The Burden of Caring: The Moral Injury of COVID-19 The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/cynda-rushton

March 24, 2021

How COVID-19 inspired two nurses to rethink visitation

In the spring of 2020, Duke University hospital adopted a restricted visitation policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, making it impossible for patients to see their families in person. Two nurses in the ICU at Duke’s Heart Center quickly created a program to empower virtual visits via iPad. Working in partnership with Duke’s School of Nursing, frontline staff and the Heart Center’s leadership team, Mollie Kettle and Kelly Kester developed workflows, trained staff, secured approval and implemented the process in just over a week. Not only did they make it possible to maintain a high level of care for patients and their families, they demonstrated how a crisis can lead to the rapid roll-out of evidence-based innovation. In this episode, Dan speaks with Mollie and Kelly about their process and its outcomes, which were detailed in a study that recently appeared in AACN Advanced Critical Care. Mollie and Kelly also talk about their approach to change management and lessons for other nurse leaders. Links to recommended reading: COVID-19: Mobilizing Quickly for a Rapid Response AACN Healthy Work Environments The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/mollie-kelly

March 17, 2021

A North Dakota nurse speaks out

The state of North Dakota has been an unlikely area of focus in the second half of the COVID-19 pandemic, first for the state’s incredibly high infection rate, then for the governor’s controversial decision to ask nurses who had tested positive for COVID-19 to continue working, and now, as one of the states with the highest vaccination rates. Our guest for this episode is Tessa Johnson. Tessa is the President of the North Dakota’s Nurses Association, and she’s been thrust into the spotlight as the nurses in her state have grappled with the fallout from the governor’s executive order. Dr. Nurse Dan chatted with Tessa to get her take on that decision, her thoughts on how things could have been handled differently and lessons learned from being one of the epicenters of the pandemic. She also shares what it’s been like to become the face of the nurses in her state on national media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. Links to recommended reading: North Dakota Nurses Association Tessa Johnson on CNN MSNBC: North Dakota Nurses Association president: 'We're in a very critical situation' The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/tessa-johnson

March 10, 2021

The role of nurses as healthcare goes digital

For nurses with a passion for technology, the time has never been better to explore non-traditional career opportunities. Early in her career, our guest for this episode, Molly McCarthy, did exactly that -- stepping away from the beside to pursue her passion in medical device design and health technology. After stints at Philips and Natus, she landed at Microsoft, where she served as the Chief Nursing Officer for six years, and now leads a team that drives digital innovation for health provider and payor organizations. In her conversation with Dr. Nurse Dan, Molly explores the ways that nurses can get involved as healthcare delivery becomes more and more digital, as well as how Microsoft is working to get more nurses involved in its design process for initiatives related to the vaccine roll out and virtual care. Links to recommended reading: Empowering Nurse Innovation in the NurseHack4Health: First Virtual Hackathon NurseHack4Health How to Find Remote Nursing Jobs in 2021 7 Ways Telemedicine Is Transforming Healthcare The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/molly-mccarthy

March 3, 2021

Making your unit safe for nurses of color

To wrap up our interview series for Black History Month, we are re-releasing a very special episode from our archives with Ashley Sayles. Ashley is a pediatric nurse practitioner living and working in Baltimore who has been very open about her brushes with racism and her experience being the only black nurse on her unit. She joined Dr. Nurse Dan late last year to talk about how pivotal conversations around race have spilled over into healthcare, forcing those of us who work in this industry to reckon with how we care for patients and how we treat our coworkers of color. In this interview, Ashley shares invaluable insights and advice to nurse leaders on how to create more equitable and inclusive workplaces and guidance to nurses who want to be allies for the nurses of color on their units. Ashley also shares why 2020 has been a turning point for her and other black nurses and the changes she’s witnessed as a result of the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Links to recommended reading: The ReNegade Résumé Being the Only Black Nurse on the Unit Black Nurses Rock The Role of Allyship in Healthcare and Nursing How Nurses Can Help Dismantle Racial Healthcare Disparity The Handoff Episode 44: Making nursing more diverse The Handoff Episode 45: What the ANA is doing to combat racism in nursing The Handoff Episode 46: Why going “back to normal” isn’t an option for underrepresented communities The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/ashley-sayles

February 24, 2021

Why going “back to normal” isn’t an option for underrepresented communities

Our third interview in honor of Black History Month is with Dr. James Simmons, a nurse practitioner and thought leader who has appeared everywhere from Good Morning America to CBS and NBC to People magazine. He’s also amassed a large social following on Twitter and Instagram, where he answers health-related questions from the public at the handle @AsktheNP. James is an outspoken advocate of both the Black and LGBTQ+ communities, and in his conversation with Dr. Nurse Dan, he talks candidly about the inequities that the pandemic has laid bare, and why “going back to normal” isn’t an option for these individuals. In this episode, James speaks plainly about how the system has let down and left out these communities and what nurses and nurse leaders can do to make a difference moving forward. Links to recommended reading: Meet James Simmons of Ask The NP in Greater LA Nurse Practitioner Documents Getting The COVID Vaccine - What To Expect Healthcare and Cultural Considerations for Patients How Nurses Can Help Dismantle Racial Healthcare Disparity The Handoff Episode 44: Making nursing more diverse The Handoff Episode 45: What the ANA is doing to combat racism in nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/james-simmons

February 17, 2021

What the ANA is doing to combat racism in nursing

Our second interview in honor of Black History Month is with Dr. Ernest Grant. Dr. Grant made history in January of 2020 when he became the first-ever male president of the American Nurses Association. Across his long and storied career, Dr. Grant has worked tirelessly to advocate for nurses and attract more people to the profession. In this conversation, he tells Dr. Nurse Dan about the ANA’s priorities for 2021, including how they are working with the new Biden administration and influencing policy in Washington. He also talks in depth about the role of nurses in the vaccine roll-out, what he’s hearing about nurses’ mental health and what he thinks the long-term impact of COVID-19 will be on the profession. Dr. Grant and Dan close out the conversation with details on the ANA’s latest project to combat racism in nursing -- a project Dr. Grant says he hopes will be his legacy on the organization. Links to recommended reading: 10 things you didn't know about Ernest Grant, the first male ANA president Leading Nursing Organizations Launch the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing ANA President On Why People Of Color Should Be Involved In Vaccine Trials AHA, AMA, ANA Issue Open Letter Urging Health Care Professionals to Take Covid-19 Vaccine & Share Experience With Others The Handoff Episode 44: Making nursing more diverse The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/ernest-grant

February 10, 2021

Making nursing more diverse

Today’s episode kicks off a series of interviews in support of Black History Month. For the next four weeks, we’ll be featuring conversations with leading voices in the Black nursing community around topics like building a more diverse nursing workforce, creating inclusive workplaces and providing equitable patient care. Our first conversation is with Dr. Rumay Alexander. Rumay is currently a professor in The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing. She was also the first nurse ever to serve as the university's Associate Vice-Chancellor/Chief Diversity Officer. Throughout her career, she’s been “the first” or “the only” in many of her roles, whether it was the first woman, the first African American or the first person ever to hold a given role. It’s a perspective that has shaped much of her career and her passion for topics like diversity, inclusion, belonging and justice. Dan and Rumay talk in depth about how to make nursing at both the bedside and in academia more representative of the population overall. Rumay shares the strategies she used to widen the funnel of students at UNC, her thoughts on what good leadership looks like when it comes to advancing the cause of diversity, and how COVID-19 has actually been helpful in opening our collective eyes. Links to recommended reading: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing National League of Nursing Disruptive Demographics: Their Effects on Nursing Demand, Supply and Academic Preparation Diversity and inclusion research: G. Rumay Alexander (video) The Role of Allyship in Healthcare and Nursing Black History Month 2021 - Honoring Black Healthcare Leaders The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/rumay-alexander

February 3, 2021

How nurses can cope with the trauma of COVID-19

The challenges facing nurses and nurse leaders are bigger and more urgent than ever before, and our guest for this episode is an expert on a topic that is on the minds of nearly every healthcare worker: how to process the collective trauma that has been inflicted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Diana Hendel is the former long-time CEO of Long Beach Memorial. In 2009, one of her employees shot two of his supervisors before taking his own life, an event that profoundly changed Diana as a leader and a person. She spent the next six years working to heal the organization and a result, becoming a student of organizational trauma, a topic she says isn’t widely understood. After retiring from the hospital, Diana went on to launch an executive coaching and leadership practice to help other leaders who were dealing with this issue, and eventually wrote a memoir about her experience. She has now channeled her expertise into helping healthcare leaders and workers deal with the impact of COVID-19. In this conversation, Diana and Dr. Nurse Dan talk about the difference between trauma and stress, the existential crisis facing nurses and frontline care providers and how leaders can help their employees through the unprecedented challenges of this time. Links to recommended reading: Why Cope When You Can Heal? Why Cope When You Can Heal?: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD (Amazon) Responsible: A Memoir (Amazon) Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption (Amazon) Innovations for the Modern Nurse Leader: Team Mental Wellness Wellness Partner Program hosted by Trusted Health & Ohio State University College of Nursing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/diana-hendel

January 27, 2021

The Handoff Season 3: Coming Soon

The Handoff will be back with season 3 next Wednesday, January 27 featuring interviews on topics like clinical ethics and moral resilience, mental health and burnout, the intersection of nursing and the gig economy, and diversity in nursing at the leadership level.

January 21, 2021

What nurse leaders need to know about informatics

Informatics is a quickly growing field in the nursing world, and yet there is often confusion about what exactly informaticists do and how their work intersects with clinical nurses. Our guest for this episode is Tammy Kwiatkoski, director of clinical informatics for HIMSS. She’s here to dispel some of the mystery around this role, speak to why informatics is an attractive career path for nurses and what kind of skills are needed to break into the field. We also talk about how nurse leaders can partner with their colleagues in informatics to deliver better patient care. Tammy and Dr. Nurse Dan also speak about the impact that COVID-19 has had in her world. When the pandemic began, nurse informaticists at many health systems quickly stepped in to configure telemedicine tools, update documentation procedures, secure translators and ensure patients could receive virtual care, giving this role a new urgency literally overnight. Links to recommended reading: HIMSS Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey Nursing Informatics Community The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/tammy-kwiatkoski

November 12, 2020

The future of clinical education

Our guest for this episode is an expert on clinical education and is helping to answer a question that is close to Dr. Nurse Dan’s heart: “How do we train the doctors and nurses of the future?” Lawrence Sherman is the CEO of Meducate Global, a consultancy whose goal is to improve the education of healthcare professionals around the world. He and Dan talk about how the landscape for clinical education is changing, and how those changes have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic as learning has moved from a face-to-face setting to a digital one. Lawrence shares his thoughts on how the role of clinical educator needs to evolve from a one-directional transferer of knowledge to a facilitator of learning. He also shares advice for nurse leaders who want to build on the innovation happening in academia and embed that into their own culture of continuous learning. We also talk about the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary learning in a hospital setting. Links to recommended reading: Meducate Global TEDxMaastricht - Lawrence Sherman - "Turning medical education inside out and upside down" The Future of Nursing Education The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lawrence-sherman

November 10, 2020

Why conversations about nurse leadership need to start earlier

Our guest for this episode has some strong opinions on nursing education and nurse leadership, and how we can evolve both of those areas. Jannah Amiel became a pediatric nurse in 2007, but quickly realized that her passion was in teaching after seeing that the traditional nursing school model wasn’t setting up many students for success. After working in academia for several years, she ultimately launched TootRN, a one-to-one tutoring program that prepares nursing students for their NCLEX. She’s also a nursing Content Manager at Osmosis, where develops content that’s custom tailored to Nursing students. In her conversation with Dr. Nurse Dan, Jannah shares her thoughts on what she thinks is working in nursing education and where she thinks we need improvement. She also talks about why our thinking about nurse leaders is antiquated and causes us to miss out on promising talent and why conversations with nurses about leadership need to start much earlier in their career. Links to recommended reading: Osmosis Team Spotlight: Jannah Amiel, MSN, BSN, RN, Nursing Content Manager Osmosis Raise the Line Podcast The NCLEX® Playbook The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/jannah-amiel

November 5, 2020

Why we need more nurses with disabilities

Today’s guest is someone very special who is working tirelessly to change the field of nursing. Andrea Dalzell is a registered nurse and a pioneering activist for people with disabilities. At five years old, she was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder that left her unable to walk. Despite spending most of her life in a wheelchair, Andrea has been determined to make a difference, graduating with honors and receiving many awards for her advocacy work and leadership, including the Cindy Loo Disability Rights Advocate Award. In 2018, Andrea became not only a registered nurse, but the only nurse in all of New York City who is in a wheelchair. After the school where she was working closed down in March, Andrea heeded Governor Cuomo’s call for help and began working on the frontlines with the city’s COVID patients. Throughout her professional journey, Andrea has had to fight against the preconceived notions that her professors, bosses and colleagues have had about her disability. She has worked tirelessly to promote health inclusion and advocate for people with disabilities. Last month, she was awarded the inaugural Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize, which she’ll be using to start a foundation to encourage people with disabilities to get into the field of nursing and to ensure that nursing schools are equipped to handle students with disabilities. Dr. Dan speaks with Andrea about her experiences, what she plans to do next and what she wants nurse leaders and other individuals working in the healthcare industry to know. Links to recommended reading: Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize 'Good Morning America' surprises NYC nurse, disability advocate with $1 million This RN Who Uses a Wheelchair Is Treating COVID-19 Patients in NYC Trusted Health Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/andrea-dalzell

October 29, 2020

Addressing bullying and incivility in nursing

One of the things that many people are surprised to learn about nursing is how strong the culture of bullying can be. It’s an issue that Dr. Nurse Dan feels passionately about addressing, and in this episode he goes deep with Dr. Renee Thompson on this issue and some of the root causes behind it. Renee is the CEO and founder of The Healthy Workforce Institute, a training and consulting company dedicated to helping healthcare organizations create a healthy workforce by eradicating bullying and incivility. In her conversation with Dan, Renee shares advice on the behaviors that nurse leaders should look out for among their staff as well as key confronting strategies. She explains why confronting is actually much easier than you might think. Renee also shares where she sees the most bad behavior happening and the role of self-care in creating a healthy workplace. Links to recommended reading: A survey of the impact of disruptive behaviors and communication defects on patient safety. What Leaders and Employees Can Do To Eradicate Bullying in Healthcare Enough! Eradicate Bullying and Incivility in Healthcare: Strategies for Front Line "Do No Harm" Applies To Nurses Too! Share Conflict In Nursing: Types, Strategies, and Resolutions The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/renee-thompson

October 27, 2020

Making your unit safe for nurses of color

2020 has been a pivotal year for discussions about race and many of these important conversations have spilled over into healthcare, forcing those of us who work in this industry to reckon with how we care for patients and how we treat our coworkers of color. Our guest for this episode is Ashley Sayles, a pediatric nurse practitioner living and working in Baltimore. Ashley has been very open about her brushes with racism and her experience being the only black nurse on her unit. In this conversation, she shares invaluable insights and advice to nurse leaders on how to create more equitable and inclusive workplaces and guidance to nurses who want to be allies for the nurses of color on their units. Ashley also shares how 2020 has been a turning point for her and other black nurses and the changes she’s witnessed as a result of the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Links to recommended reading: The ReNegade Résumé Being the Only Black Nurse on the Unit Black Nurses Rock The Role of Allyship in Healthcare and Nursing How Nurses Can Help Dismantle Racial Healthcare Disparity The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/ashley-sayles

October 22, 2020

A millennial nurse leader talks innovation and the importance of soft skills

Over the course of this season, we’ve had several guests on the show to talk about the unique role that nurses play in spurring grassroots innovation within their organizations. Our guest for this episode is putting this into practice and has made innovation a theme of her career. Charlene Platon is a rising star in the nursing profession. In under ten years, she’s risen up the ranks to become the Director of Ambulatory Nursing at Stanford Health Care and was recently named as one of the inaugural recipients of Johnson & Johnson’s Nurse Innovation Fellowship. She’s passionate about using technology to transform healthcare delivery and improve patient care. In addition to innovation, Charlene is also passionate about leadership, particularly from a millennial point of view. In this episode, she and Dan talk about everything from gaining confidence as a new leader, the importance of soft skills and emotional intelligence in managing teams and how to make time for innovation-related projects as a nurse. Links to recommended reading: Meet the 12 Inspired Nurses of the First J&J Nurse Innovation Fellowship Ambulatory Nursing at Stanford Health Care The Nurse Hack for Health: COVID-19 Virtual Hackathon Association of California Nurse Leaders Episode 18: Why these two design experts think nurses are uniquely well-suited to be agents of innovation Episode 24: Why we need more products designed by nurses Episode 30: How nurses can develop an innovation mindset The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/charlene-platon

October 20, 2020

How to be a “people whisperer”

Our guest for this episode believes that skilled leadership is, first and foremost, about being what he calls a “people whisperer.” Sean Olson is an executive coach with more than 20 years of experience helping individuals and teams reach their full potential. In his role, he has worked with dozens of healthcare and nurse leaders. Sean is a firm believer that being a nurse leader is about people, not processes and that knowing and being connected to one’s team is the single most important part of the job. Sean and Dan talk about how to cultivate those relationships, particularly when you manage a large team and can’t stay tapped into every single individual. Sean also talks about how he’s coaching clients who have seen their rate of innovation speed up as a result of COVID-19, and want to keep that pace even after the pandemic subsides. Links to recommended reading: Renogize Professional Coaching What Are the HALT Risk States? Diffusion of Innovations This Is How I Role The full transcript for this episode can be found here: http://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/sean-olson

October 15, 2020

The Handoff Live: Team mental wellness strategies for nurse leaders

In our first-ever live episode of The Handoff, Dr. Nurse Dan is joined by our guest from episode one, Courtnay Caufield, Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser Permanente’s Sunnyside Medical Center, to talk about all things mental wellness. In this conversation, Dan and Courtnay talk about how nursing leaders can support their teams with proven tools to help them build resilience, improve their mental wellness and ensure the best possible outcomes for their patients. Links to recommended reading: Innovations for the Modern Nurse Leader: Team Mental Wellness The Handoff Live on YouTube Resources for Mental Health & Emotional Support The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/live

October 13, 2020

Leadership insights for nurses

Making the shift from the bedside to nurse manager or nurse leader is one of the biggest challenges that nurses face. Our guest for this episode is well versed on this issue because her current role is all about creating professional development programs for nurses. Crystal Lawson is the Education Director at the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, overseeing their fellowships for nurse managers and directors. In this conversation, Crystal lets Dr. Dan pepper her with questions on everything from how new nurse leaders can settle into their roles, the difference between accountability and availability, and tips on budgeting, time management and boundary setting. She also shares some great tips for listeners who are interested in applying for one of the AONL’s fellowships. Links to recommended reading: AONL Nurse Leader Fellowships Nurse Executive Competencies Nurse Manager Competencies The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/crystal-lawson

October 8, 2020

How COVID-19 has made simulation more relevant than ever

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the country and forced many nursing schools to pivot to online learning, the use of simulation in nursing curriculum has skyrocketed. And no one is more passionate about and more of an expert on simulation than our guest for this episode, KT Waxman. KT is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Executive Leadership DNP Program at the University of San Francisco and the immediate past president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. She’s been working in the field of simulation for 15 years and has seen her work take on more relevance than ever over the last several months. Dan and KT and I discuss the shift to VR and screen-based learning in both schools and hospitals, how she’s focused on helping nurses achieve the outcomes of their coursework while relying heavily on simulation and how simulation can be used in some lesser known scenarios, like leadership development. Links to recommended reading: The California Simulation Alliance Position Statement on Use of Virtual Simulation during the Pandemic California Assembly Bill 2288: Nursing programs: state of emergency Health Care Finance for Nurse Executives Nursing Administration Quarterly The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/kt-waxman

October 7, 2020

We're hosting a live episode of The Handoff!

The team at Trusted Health is getting ready to host our first-ever live episode of The Handoff! Dr. Nurse Dan will be joined by our guest from episode one, Courtnay Caufield, Chief Nurse Executive at Kaiser Permanente’s Sunnyside Medical Center, to talk about all things mental wellness. In this conversation, we’ll be talking about how nursing leaders can support their teams with proven tools to help them build resilience, improve their mental wellness and ensure the best possible outcomes for their patients. The episode will be streamed live online at 2pm PT / 5pm ET on Monday, October 5 and Dan and Courtnay will be taking live questions from our audience. To register, please visit: https://www.bevycares.com/events/details/bevy-cares-trusted-health-presents-trusted-health-presents-the-handoff-podcast-live-stop-nurse-burnout-today/#/

October 2, 2020

Simple tips to sharpen your financial skills as a nurse leader

As nurse leaders climb the career ladder and begin to manage teams and budgets, many find that the learning curve for the financial portion of their job is quite steep. Our guest for this episode is here to help nurses understand how they can meet this challenge and develop a better working relationship with their organization’s finance team. Deborah Stilgenbauer is a rare breed. She’s a former bedside nurse who now works on the finance team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she helps Chief Nurse Executives with their budgeting, variance reporting and staffing modeling. Deborah and Dan talk about the biggest disconnect between nurses and finance, where she sees the biggest financial knowledge gap when it comes to nurse leaders, and how frontline clinicians can have a positive impact on their team’s budget. They also talk about how New York-Presbyterian’s staff is doing in the wake of the city’s COVID surge this spring, as well as how the hospital has adjusted its staffing practices as a result. Links to recommended reading: Trusted Health Frontline Nurse Mental Health & Well-being Survey The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/deborah-stilgenbauer

October 1, 2020

How nurses can develop an innovation mindset

In this episode of The Handoff, Dr. Nurse Dan gets to talk about his favorite topic -- innovation in nursing -- with innovation and design thinking expert Marion Leary. Marion is the Director Of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she teaches on topics including design thinking and disruption in the healthcare industry. She’s also the host of the Amplify Nursing Podcast. In this conversation, Marion shares how she is trying to infuse innovation methodology into every level of the curriculum at Penn and to give her students an innovation mindset that they can take with them into the field. She and Dan talk about what areas of nursing are most primed for change, how COVID-19 has inspired more nurses to develop solutions to the problems they see and how all nurses can bring innovation into their daily life. Links to recommended reading: Design Thinking for Health SONSIEL: Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs & Leaders Amplify Nursing Podcast The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/marion-leary

September 29, 2020

Advice for nurse-entrepreneurs from a healthcare investor

In recent years, more and more hospitals and health systems have launched investment arms in order to discover and fund companies that can help solve some of their internal challenges. Our guest for this episode is Cyril Philip, a Principal at Providence Ventures, where he focuses on investments in healthcare technology, tech-enabled services, and digital health. We talk about the kinds of companies that get him excited and what technology he’s looking to invest in. He also shares how he engages clinicians in his vetting and due diligence process, and why it’s so important for him to get them excited and involved before he decides to make an investment. And for all of our listeners out there who are budding entrepreneurs, Cyril shares some great advice about getting your company off the ground and looking for investment, including the one question he always encourages entrepreneurs to ask themselves. Links to recommended reading: Providence Ventures blog Leave Your Job (But Stay in Nursing) - Trusted Health Blog The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/cyril-philip

September 24, 2020

Using big data to address nurse staffing

Staffing has long been one of the Achilles heels of the nursing profession, confounding nurse managers and nurse leaders alike, and taking up an inordinate amount of time. Our guest for this episode is an expert on the topic and has taken her cues from other industries to treat this as a data science problem. Early in her career, Therese Fitzpatrick was a chief nursing officer for various hospitals and health systems in the midwest before taking a turn as an entrepreneur, receiving her PhD in sociology and becoming a professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health. Today she is an executive at consulting firm Kaufman Hall, where she helps hospitals across the country assess their clinical and operational performance, and optimize their staffing. In this episode Therese walks us through how she applies big data to the problems of staffing and workforce optimization, some low-tech ways that nurse managers can approach scheduling, and how COVID-19 will impact the evolution of the nursing workforce. Therese believes that robust float pools driven by Millenial and Gen Z nurses are the future and encourages nurse leaders to include them in conversations around staffing and workforce. Links to recommended reading: Improving Quality of Nursing Worklife: A Global Perspective Using Labor Optimization for Nurse Staffing The Art and Science of Nurse Staffing (AACN) Effective Staffing Takes a Village: Creating the Staffing Ecosystem Advanced Analytics Must Drive the Next Round of Productivity Initiatives https://www.kaufmanhall.com/ The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/therese-fitzpatrick

September 22, 2020

A sleep expert shares her best tips for nurses

What is the ideal interval between shift rotations? Does splitting sleep work? How long is the ideal nap? What’s the difference between a power nap and a restorative nap? On this episode of The Handoff, Dan is joined by Washington State University Professor Lois James, who is an expert on the role of sleep in performance. She and Dan speak about the ways in which the culture of nursing is often in conflict with good sleep habits. She shares some very practical fatigue countermeasures, as well as strategies that hospitals and nurse leaders can take to optimize shift lengths for their staff. Dr. James’s other research interest is racism and implicit bias in healthcare, and she also speaks about the dangers of implicit bias in nursing, how those biases are formed and strategies for overcoming them. Links to recommended reading: https://nursing.wsu.edu/ https://dailyevergreen.com/8362/news/sleep-and-racial-bias-affect-police-officer-judgement/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290437363_The_Reverse_Racism_Effect_Are_Cops_More_Hesitant_to_Shoot_Black_Than_White_Suspects https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QW-xUh4AAAAJ&hl=en https://news.wsu.edu/2014/09/02/deadly-force-lab-finds-racial-disparities-in-shootings/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/sickness-sleep-nurses-nightshift https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/nurse-stress-sleep-not-anymore The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/lois-james

September 17, 2020

The state of critical care nursing

Critical care nurses have played a crucial role in the fight against COVID-19, and many have had a front row seat to how the virus has affected patients. Our guest, Megan Brunson, is a 20 year veteran of the ICU and the immediate past president of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, which is the largest specialty nurses association in the US. On this episode of The Handoff, Megan and Dan talk about everything from the health disparities she sees firsthand with COVID patients in the hospital she works in in Texas, why she thinks now is a good time for nurses to consider a career in critical care, and her advice to nurses and nurse managers on how to prevent burnout. Megan has been at the bedside for 23 years, with 20 of those in the ICU. She has worked the night shift for her entire career and is passionate about the role of sleep in keeping nurses mentally and physically healthy. Links to recommended reading: https://www.aacn.org/nursing-excellence/dear-world https://www.trustedhealth.com/nursing-specialties-guide/critical-care-nurse The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/megan-brunson

September 15, 2020

What it’s like to be a nursing student in 2020

2020 has been an unprecedented year for all nurses, and nursing students are no exception. The pandemic has prevented many students from meeting their in-person clinical hours, setting off legislative fights in some states and delaying graduation in others. Our guests Andrew Rohrer and Caeli Matanky are the president and vice president of the California Nursing Students’ Association, respectively. Dan chats with them about the transition from in-person instruction to distance learning, how nursing school is teaching diversity and what it’s like to look for a job as a recent nursing graduate. Andrew is currently enrolled in a joint ADN/BSN program between Modesto Jr. College and Cal State Stanislaus. He started the CNSA chapter at his school and ultimately became the president of the entire association. Caeli graduated from Sonoma State’s nursing program this spring and was CNSA’s vice president. Since our conversation, she has since accepted a job on the Cardiac Telemetry Unit at Adventist Health in Rohnert Park, CA. Andrew can be reached at pres (at) cnsa (dot) org and Caeli can be reached at vp (at) cnsa (dot) org. Links to recommended reading: https://www.cnsa.org/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/advice-for-new-grad-nurses-2020 https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/25-things-they-didnt-tell-you-in-nursing-school-but-we-will The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/andrew-caeli

September 10, 2020

Why we need more products designed by nurses

Nurses are the nation’s largest group of healthcare professionals and use more products than any other group of clinicians, giving them what Karen Giuliano calls a “uniquely practical and care sensitive perspective on healthcare delivery.” Karen started her career as a critical care nurse. She was a self described “tinkerer” whose curiosity about products in the ICU ultimately helped her pivot her career into product development, and she wants to encourage more nurses to get involved in product design and development. In this conversation, Karen and Dan talk about why nurses are the ideal clinicians to address everyday problems in healthcare, how she hopes that COVID-19 will speed up the role of nurses in healthcare innovation and advice for nurses who want to build new products. Karen can be reached at kkgiuliano(at)nursing(dot)umass(dot)edu Links to recommended reading: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Giuliano2 The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/karen-giuliano

September 7, 2020

The political power of nurses

Nurses don’t think about how politics and policy making shape their roles, and Marketa Houskova believes that needs to change. Marketa is the Executive Director of the California chapter of the ANA. On this episode of The Handoff, she speaks with Dan about why growing up in Czechoslovakia gave her a unique perspective on why it’s important to make your voice heard in government, and how that led to a career at the intersection of nursing, healthcare, politics, policy and administration. Marketa believes that nurses have huge political power and that many of their skills around things like conflict resolution are highly transferable to the political sphere. In this conversation, she shares advice for nurses who want to get involved in politics and policy making, the legislation that she’s focused on right now and how California stacks up relative to other states when it comes to policies and regulation around nurses. Links to recommended reading: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB890 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2288 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB1237 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB1053 https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/is-california-part-of-nurse-licensure-compact https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/trusted-guide-california-licensing The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/marketa-houskova

September 3, 2020

Making ethical decisions in the face of uncertainty

When it comes to ethics in nursing, easy answers are hard to come by. ANA’s Bioethicist Liz Stokes says that the questions she helps nurses tackle are rarely a case of “wrong vs. right,” but rather “right vs. right,” and her job is to help ANA’s members think through those issues in a constructive and ethical way. Between COVID-19 and increasing urgency on conversations around health equity, Liz is fielding more ethical questions than ever these days, and in this episode of The Handoff, she speaks with Dan about what she’s hearing. Liz shares insights into the kinds of ethical dilemmas she’s seeing nurses struggle with as a result of COVID-19 and how they are weighing their professional obligations to deliver care against a lack of PPE and other resources. She recommends several resources for nurses working on the frontlines of the pandemic. Liz and Dan also discuss the intersection of racial justice and the nursing profession, and the tools for nurses who want to avoid health disparities in their own organizations. One surprising insight? While we often talk about the intersection of racism and healthcare as it relates to patients, Liz says she is often asked by ANA members about the racism that they experience from their patients. You can reach Liz at ethics(at)ana(dot)org Links to recommended reading: https://asbh.org/ https://www.healthynursehealthynation.org/ https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/work-environment/health-safety/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus/what-you-need-to-know/the-well-being-initiative/ https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/ethics/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/mental-health https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/the-burden-of-caring-the-moral-injury-of-covid-19 The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/liz-stokes

August 31, 2020

Understanding health equity starts locally

Why does the U.S. have such disparities in health outcomes across different patient populations? It’s a question that has come up with increasing frequency in the wake of COVID-19 and larger conversations around racial equality in the U.S. On this episode of The Handoff, Dan and a special co-host speak with Shawna Butler, a Nurse Economist and the host of Johnson & Johnson’s See You Now podcast about what health equity means to her and her advice for nurses who want to ensure more equitable outcomes for their patients. Shawna believes that health is inherently local and that by focusing so much on global comparisons, we’re missing an important part of the story. She encourages us to look at our cities and towns to understand the root of the problem and start to find solutions. Dan also speaks with Shawna about everything from how the U.S. healthcare system stacks up against other countries and the number one thing she would change (hint: it’s probably not what you think!) to school re-openings and even her takeaways from multiple encounters with late Congressman John Lewis. Links to recommended reading: https://nursing.jnj.com/see-you-now-podcast https://exponential.singularityu.org/medicine/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/how-nurses-can-help-dismantle-racial-healthcare-disparity The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/shawna-butler

August 26, 2020

Nursing leadership in the era of COVID-19

Being a nurse leader is never easy, but during a once-in-a-generation public health crisis like COVID-19, it’s particularly difficult. On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Marion Broome, Dean of Duke University’s School of Nursing, about how she and her team are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she thinks about leading through difficult times. Marion is a big believer in two things: relationships and communication. She encourages all leaders to build a strong foundation with their colleagues before a crisis hits. When you’re in the thick of it, Marion says it’s all about communication and that it has to come from the top. She shares with Dan how she’s put this into practice at Duke with weekly town halls to keep everyone informed. She and Dan also discuss the art of decision making in a crisis, and why non-decisions effectively become decisions. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/marion-broome

August 24, 2020

Practical career advice for the modern nurse

What are the best tools and resources for nurses who are thinking about their next career move? How should a nurse go about exploring non-traditional career paths? Is now even a good time to think about making a move? In this episode of The Handoff, Dan covers these questions and more with veteran healthcare executive and career coach Beth A. Brooks. Beth’s career spans more than three decades across three distinct sectors of the healthcare industry: for-profit companies, academic administration and nursing operations within health care systems (though she says her favorite job ever was at an advertising agency!). She’s an expert in the quality of nursing worklife and developed Brooks' Quality of Nursing Worklife Survey. Today she helps nurses and nurse leaders make smart decisions about their careers. She’s particularly passionate about helping nurses get on to company boards. She shares advice for nurses who want to go down this path, while being candid about the fact that it’s still a struggle, even with recent legislation in California mandating that every public company needs to have at least one woman on its board. Links to recommended reading: https://www.careeranchorsonline.com/SCA/ https://www.aonl.org/resources/online-assessments https://matter.health/ https://www.nursesonboardscoalition.org/ https://www.trustedhealth.com/blog/5-simple-ways-to-advance-your-nursing-career The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/beth-brooks

August 20, 2020

Why these two design experts think nurses are uniquely well-suited to be agents of innovation

It’s easy to look at other organizations’ innovation initiatives and feel envious and overwhelmed by the idea of trying to initiate similar change within your own workplace. But Chris McCarthy and Christi Zuber argue that nurses are actually well-suited to this challenge because of their skills as “conveners of people” who are accustomed to working with stakeholders across multiple disciplines. They also believe that the purpose-oriented nature of nursing is one of its superpowers and gives nurses the unique ability to be change agents. In this episode, Chris and Christi, who spent more than a decade working together as co-founders and leaders of Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation Consultancy, discuss the role of human-centered design in healthcare, the role that culture plays in innovation and why value trumps both passion and methodology. Links to recommended reading: https://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/ https://hopelab.org/ https://www.aspenlabsnetwork.com/ https://www.nurseleader.com/article/S1541-4612(20)30070-7/pdf https://hbr.org/2010/09/kaiser-permanentes-innovation-on-the-front-lines The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/chris-mccarthy-and-christi-zuber

August 17, 2020

The common hospital workaround that inspired two nurse entrepreneurs

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Joey Ferry and Taofiki Gafar-Schaner, the nurse entrepreneurs behind SafeSeizure pads-- self-inflating, single patient use seizure pads that are tailored to fit hospital beds and cribs. They talk to Dan about how their experience as bedside nurses using a combination of bed linens, tape and mesh underwear to create a safety pad for seizure patients inspired their invention. They point to this as just one of the many workarounds that the nursing profession is full of and explain how those are the areas that are ripe for innovation in the field. Joey and Taofiki also share the advice that they’ve given to other aspiring nurse entrepreneurs, as well as their thoughts on how hospital leaders can encourage innovation from within their own facilities. You can find out more about SafeSeizures and Joey and Taofiki’s story at www.safeseizure.com and www.frontierhealthresources.com. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/safe-seizures

June 3, 2020

Bringing more creativity and innovation to the practice of nursing

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Dan Pesut a Professor of Nursing and Population Health and the Director of the Katharine J. Densford International Center for Nursing Leadership at the University of Minnesota. Dan has spent 43 years in academia dedicated to bringing more creativity and innovation to the practice of nursing, and activating nurses to think more about the future. During the conversation, he shares advice for how healthcare leaders can foster more creativity in their staff, what kinds of cultures encourage innovation and how to build a creativity mindset in nursing. He also discusses the difference between change and transformation and the roles of both leaders and managers in those respective processes. Resources referenced during this episode include: Foresight Leadership: The Future of Nursing and Health online hub Foresight Leadership: The Future of Nursing and Health LinkedIn Group Strategies of Genius by Robert Dilts The Creative Power: Transforming Ourselves, Our Organizations, and Our World Liberating Structures FutureWe Framework The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/dan-pesut

May 28, 2020

How Elemeno Health drew inspiration from Salesforce to deliver better patient care

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Dr. Arup Roy-Burman, a pediatric physician and Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF. Arup is also the founder and CEO of Elemeno Health, a mobile platform that helps healthcare organizations engage frontline staff to deliver consistent best practice, and bring quality, safety, and efficiency to the point of care. Arup and Dan discuss how EHRs, facility guidelines and clinical innovations have led to a massive increase in complexity across the healthcare industry. Arup recounts how he saw firsthand as a physician that this led to deviations from best practice that resulted in errors, and wanted to find a solution. Drawing inspiration from Salesforce, he sought to use technology as an enabler and founded Elemeno to deliver just in time micro learnings for frontline clinicians. Elemeno also uses gamification to drive adoption and accountability within a unit. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/elemeno-health

May 18, 2020

Empowering consumers to collect, own and share their health data

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Ardy Arianpour, CEO and co-founder of Seqster, a healthcare platform that empowers consumers to aggregate their medical records, genetic data, and fitness data from wearables and other personal health devices into one place. Ardy grew up in San Diego, the “mecca of genomics,” as the son of a breast cancer survivor, two experiences that shaped his early interest in the field. He was one of the very first people to have his genome mapped and recognized early on that there was a huge opportunity to connect data from disparate sources like wearables, Ancestry.com, 23andme and EHRs. Inspired by Mint.com, he set out to create an individualized health record that would enable people to improve their health by collecting, owning and sharing their data. He shares with Dan how Seqster combines data interoperability and patient engagement to facilitate meaningful conversations between caregivers and patients and ultimately, drive better health outcomes. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/ardy-arianpour

May 12, 2020

Nurse Burnout: Russ Richmond, Founder & CEO of Laudio

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Laudio Founder and CEO Russ Richmond. Russ is a physician who left the bedside early on to pursue a career in entrepreneurship. He explains to Dan why he was drawn into solving issues at the system level, but still thinks of himself as a caregiver. He also shares the story of a serious skiing accident that landed him in the hospital for three months and gave him a completely different lens into what it’s like to be a clinician. This experience ultimately inspired him to start Laudio, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent clinician burnout. Russ shares that the number one cause of burnout is feeling unappreciated, and how meaningful employee interactions between clinicians and managers can have a profound impact on addressing this. He and Dan discuss the important role that managers play in preventing burnout and staff turnover, the difference between transformative and transactional leadership, and why it’s not one big thing, but hundreds of small things that can make the difference to keeping staff engaged and preventing errors in patient care. The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/russ-richmond

May 4, 2020

Nurse Burnout: Michelle Troseth & Tracy Christopherson of MissingLogic

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Michelle Troseth and Tracy Christopherson of MissingLogic. They share with Dan how a three-decade long partnership and friendship turned into a shared passion for creating healthy, healing work cultures. In 2018, they started MissingLogic to help serve the needs of healthcare leaders looking to live a resilient and balanced life, and to work with healthcare organizations committed to improving their work cultures. Michelle and Tracy shared how they think about polarities rather than problems when it comes to working with healthcare organizations, why they think burnout has grown exponentially in recent years and where the accountability lies between individuals and systems in preventing burnout. You can find more details about MissingLogic as well as a link to Michelle and Tracy’s podcast below: https://www.facebook.com/missinglogicLLC/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/RandBhealthcareleaders/https://twitter.com/MissingLogicLLC https://www.linkedin.com/company/missinglogic-llc/ https://www.missinglogic.com/podcast The full transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/missing-logic

April 29, 2020

Nurse Burnout: Mike Ackerman of The Ohio State University College of Nursing

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Mike Ackerman, the Director of the Master in Healthcare Innovation Program and a Professor of Clinical Nursing at The Ohio State University. One of Mike’s passions is promoting mental health and wellness among nurses, and they discussed a variety of different topics related to nurse burnout. Mike shared what Ohio State is doing to help its nursing students maintain their mental health, and how they integrate the concept of “live well” into their courses. He highlighted the role that the EMR has had in clinician burnout and his thoughts on the bill that’s working its way through the Ohio state legislature to end mandatory overtime for nurses. Mike also discussed why he doesn’t like the word “burnout,” how the healthcare industry needs to look more at systems than individuals when seeking to find solutions, and how he thinks the current COVID-19 crisis will impact nurses.

April 22, 2020

Automation + Healthcare: Alexis Paul & Kerry Wang of Humana

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Alexis Paul and Kerry Wang of Humana’s Intelligent Automation Center of Excellence. They shared the inspiration behind the center of excellence, as well as its mission to reduce complexity and make life easier for Humana’s 45,000 associates and more than 14 million members. Alexis and Kerry talked about Humana’s realization that its associate experience lagged behind its member experience, and how that has guided the team is looking for ways to automate repeatable, mundane tasks like refilling prescriptions. They shared how they involve members and associates in their process, as well as Humana’s “citizen developer effort,” which allows associates to define and build their own automation processes. The transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/episode-10-humana

April 8, 2020

Special Episode: Nurses on the Front Lines of Covid-19

On this special episode of The Handoff, we’re bringing you interviews with two nurses who are the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. First Dan spoke with Sam Koerner, an ICU nurse who travels to assignments with her tiny home, which is where she’s currently under quarantine after working with Covid-19 patients and starting to develop symptoms herself. Sam shared what it’s like to be under quarantine and how it has impacted how she thinks about patient care moving forward. She also shared how she manages her personal anxiety in the face of a healthcare crisis in order to focus on her patients. Lauren Rodriguez is a cardiac ICU nurse who has amassed quite a following on Instagram, where she’s been sharing very real dispatches from the frontlines of the Covid-19 crisis at @iculaughingrn. She talked with Dan about the disjointed response from the government, the conflicting guidance she’s getting about PPE and what it’s like working with some of the most critical patients. You can find the transcript for this episode can be here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/covid-19-special

March 27, 2020

Automation + Healthcare: Chuck Feerick, Solutions Lead at Clarify Health Solutions

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Chuck Feerick about how Clarify Health Solutions is using data to create actionable impact on the healthcare industry. Chuck shares how Clarify is approaching the critical issue of patient to provider mapping using “outside-in analytics” that combine Medicare, Medicaid and commercial data. He talks about the difference between good and bad data, how Clarify involves clinicians in its process and how the company’s data is being used to give providers and payers a lens into their performance. Chuck is the Solutions Lead at Clarify Health, an analytics and software company that enables health systems to deliver better outcomes and higher value care. Over the course of his career, he has worked in a variety of different settings in healthcare, including consulting, venture capital and product management. He also formerly hosted the Innovation Rising Podcast, presented by Healthbox. Chuck is also passionate about health and wellness at both the community and individual level. As an ACE Certified Personal Trainer, he designed and built a holistic wellness program for a 6,000+ employee organization across 14 states. He is also the Founder of StandUp Chicago, a non-profit volunteer organization working to help schools implement standing desks in their classroom for their students. The transcript for this episode can be found here: www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/episode-8-chuck-feerick

March 23, 2020

Automation + Healthcare: Karen Murphy, Chief Innovation Officer at Geisinger

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Karen Murphy, Chief Innovation Officer and Founding Director of the Steele Institute for Health Innovation at Geisinger. They speak about Geisinger’s innovation program, including its work in population health and social determinants, as well as care and delivery, and how they are working to redesign chronic disease management. Dr. Murphy talks about how she engages clinicians and the C-suite in her work, the value of failure, the relationship between organizational strategy and innovation and her take on buy vs. build. She also speaks about Geisinger’s work in automation, including the technology coming out of their intelligent automation hub and AI lab, and whether she thinks that fears around automation taking away jobs is overblown. Dr. Murphy has worked to improve and transform healthcare delivery throughout her career in both the public and private sectors. Before joining Geisinger, she served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health addressing the most significant health issues facing the state, including the opioid epidemic. She also served as director of the State Innovation Models Initiative at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as president and chief executive officer of the Moses Taylor Health Care System in Scranton, and as founder and chief executive officer of Physicians Health Alliance, Inc. An author and national speaker on health policy and innovation, Dr. Murphy also serves as a clinical faculty member at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. The transcript for this episode can be found here:

March 17, 2020

Automation + Healthcare: Judy Murphy, Chief Nursing Officer of IBM Global Healthcare

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Judy Murphy, the Chief Nursing Officer at IBM Global Healthcare about how clinicians can unlock value from AI. They discuss learnings from the 30 years that Judy has spent working in healthcare IT, including from the very early days of the EHR. She shares how IBM’s Watson is being used in everything from oncology and clinical trials to genomics and medical imaging, and how health IT can help patients outside of healthcare facilities. Judy Murphy is a 40-year veteran of the healthcare industry whose career spans clinical work, informatics, policy and health IT. Starting her career as an RN, she eventually spent 25 years at Aurora Health Care in Wiscon. She later became the CNO and Deputy National Coordinator for Programs and Policy at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in Washington D.C. Today, Judy is the Chief Nursing Officer at IBM Global Healthcare, where she serves as a strategic advisor to IBM’s clients and puts together health IT solutions in order to improve health and healthcare, lower costs, and ease clinical workload. The transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.trustedhealth.com/the-handoff-podcast/judy-murphy

March 10, 2020

Automation + Healthcare: Yan Chow of Automation Anywhere

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks with Yan Chow, MD, MBA. Yan serves as the global healthcare industry leader and strategist at Automation Anywhere, a position that combines his two passions. He uses his deep understanding of the medical industry to help expand Robotic Process Automation, enabling new medical discoveries and breakthroughs. He and Dan discuss how healthcare professionals can leverage automation to improve their processes and where the industry is at relative to other sectors in terms of adoption. Yan has a long and distinguished career working at the intersection of healthcare and technology. He started his career as a pediatric resident at the Children’s Hospital of San Francisco, eventually moving on to a 32 year career at Kaiser Permanente, both as a physician and then ultimately working on various technology initiatives. In that role, he also evaluated more than 2,000 healthcare startups, wrote four patents, and co-founded a venture-funded analytics startup.

March 3, 2020

Flexible Work + Healthcare: Kelli Dragovich of Looker

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan chats with tech industry HR veteran Kelli Dragovich. Kelli has worked in Silicon Valley for more than 20 years, and in that time, she’s had a front row seat as the industry has experimented with new employment models and has embraced the new ways that people want to work today. She chats with Dan about the the trends she’s seeing, her advice for healthcare leaders and why she thinks keeping flexible workers engaged starts not with policies, but with company goals and culture. Kelli has a long track record working in a variety of people operations and HR functions at fast-growing tech companies, and is currently the Chief People Officer at Looker, a business intelligence software and big data analytics platform. At organizations like Yahoo!, Intuit, Github and Hired, she’s worked to create policies that hire and support flexible and non-traditional employees. The transcript for this episode can be found here.

February 19, 2020

Flexible Work + Healthcare: Travel Nurses Jeri Ford & Alex Herlocker

On this episode of The Handoff, Dan speaks to two seasoned travel nurses who are using the flexibility that traveling provides to amass a diverse set of clinical experiences and explore their personal passions. Jeri Ford and Alex Herlocker share advice for nurse and healthcare leaders about incorporating flexible workers into their units, why they value peer to peer feedback and the importance of a solid orientation. Jeri shares with Dan how travel nursing has allowed her to pursue her dream of entrepreneurship and Alex talks about his adventures traveling the country with his family as a full time nomad who lives completely off the grid. Jeri Ford is an experienced pediatric nurse who started her career at Riley Children's Hospital on the Transplant and Neurosurgery floor, and has spent the last several years traveling to hospitals around the country from Honolulu to Dallas and everywhere in between. She recently launched a company called Baby Whisperers, which pairs new parents with individuals with a medical background who can help with breastfeeding, sleeping routines and overall newborn care. You can find her on Instagram @jerilynn_89. Alex Herlocker is an ICU nurse who started his career on the neuro intermediate care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina. In 2015, he transitioned to a role as a travel nurse and has been criss-crossing the country in an airstream with his family, including wife, three children and two dogs. They document their travels on their blog Wee Little Nomads and on Instagram @WeeLittleNomads. The transcript for this episode can be found here.

February 18, 2020

Flexible Work + Healthcare: Courtnay Caufield of Cedars-Sinai

On this episode of The Handoff, executive nurse leader Courtnay Caufield joins Dan to talk about her early experience as a travel nurse and how it informed her more recent experience hiring, managing and working with travel nurses. She offers useful insights on staffing plans, as well as best practices around onboarding, deploying and gathering feedback from flexible workers. Courtnay is the Executive Director of Women's and Children’s Services at Cedars Sinai, where she oversees Pediatrics, PICU, NICU, OBGYN, MFCU, and Postpartum. She started as a nurse in the Special Care Nursery at Trios Health and eventually worked her way up to become the director of the Surgical Services and Surgical Pediatrics unit. Today she is an executive nurse leader and recently finished the AONL executive nurse fellowship. You can find her on Twitter @pedinursegeek. The transcript for this episode can be found here.

February 18, 2020

The Handoff

Search for a keyword or name

All Episodes

About The Handoff

Host

Joni Watson, DNP, MBA, RN, OCN

Never miss The Handoff