The interview was done with a Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in a renowned State hospital in one of the United States of America.
How would you describe your organization?
The CNO described their organization as a public state-owned and operated hospital. The hospital is the third-largest in the United States. According to the CNO, the hospital plays a vital role in ensuring the well-being and good health of the State's residents. The hospital is a centerpiece of the State's hospital system due to its large number of specialties and high-performing specialties.
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What is your position within the organization?
The interview respondent is a Chief Nursing Officer in the hospital and has been in the organization's role for the past year.
What are your primary duties in your position?
The CNO's primary duties in the hospital, as per their job role designation, revolve around leadership and administrative roles in maintaining quality clinical and patient-care standards to provide access to all clients of the right medical care. The CNO ensures all patients access the right medical care and are safe by working closing with the hospital management and other hospital stakeholders. The CNO spearheads the acquisition of the right infrastructure and resources by providing the best insights into improving quality care in the facility. The CNO has the mandate to formulate and implement new nursing strategies by applying extensive knowledge of staff rules, nursing procedures, and patient policies. The CNO plans and oversees the hospital's day-to-day activities and ensures all things run according to plan. The CNO is tasked with the mandate to establish a conducive environment for other nurses, foster collaboration, and maintain high standards for other staff members to formulate. The CNO is required to offer advisory services by engaging in extensive research, evaluating results, and submitting reports on the approaches to streamline hospital operations. The CNO is a crucial liaison link between physicians, hospital administrators, and nurses.
How would you describe some current or past issues within your organization?
There have been several issues in the organization both in the past and presently. The hospital has had problems getting and keeping nurse executives, dealing with rising labor costs. The CNO has particularly had issues in justifying the return on investment of proactive hiring and nurse staffing to the board of trustees. There has been an issue with patient safety, especially with mostly newly trained, inexperienced nurses not getting sufficient transfer of skills and knowledge from their much-experienced counterparts. The hospital is currently dealing with workplace violence with at least a case of nurses suffering physical abuse from patients being reported on a bi-weekly basis.
How did or do these issues affect your ability to complete your duties?
The CNO notes that when nurses experience physical abuse from patients, they get demoralized, and often their colleagues also end up not providing quality services to patients. In other cases, the nurse opts to resign. As a result of nurses leaving the hospital and not performing their core nursing functions, the CNO fails in their nursing roles as the patients don't get the essential services.
How have you, or the organization, attempted to address these issues?
The CNO explained that when the first cases of workplace violence, he went on to have a meeting of all nurses and had sessions with the affected nurses to understand precisely what had happened. The CNO paired nurses with other staff of at least two people whenever the nurse was delivering their services.
What has been done, and what were the results?
There was more frequent communication between the nurses, the management, and the hospital's security department. The workplace violence went down by 20% from the previously reported cases.
What has been the role or actions of leadership in an attempt to address these issues?
The leadership gave nurses a listening ear to establish the problems that were being reported. Further, the CNO and the administrators gave regular feedback on the decisions made and the steps that were to be implemented both in the short term and long term.
How effective do you think their actions have been?
The CNO explains that the actions were effective in the short term, but problems set in once the previous nurses either resigned or transferred to other hospitals. Moreover, it was noted that patient education on refraining from violence went on for a while, but after sometimes, new patients, the trend resurfaced.
What is the general attitude toward interdisciplinary collaboration at your organization?
The CNO explained that most people love working together with their colleagues from their departments and others. Generally, they embrace having an atmosphere of trust, having person-centered practice, and 6teamowork. Most staff appreciate having clear communication across disciplines. Interdisciplinary collaboration is welcome in the hospital.
Have you experienced working on an interdisciplinary or interprofessional team?
The CNO states that he often works on interdisciplinary and interprofessional teams, and so far, it has been a wonderful experience with both excellent results and challenges.
How would you characterize the experience?
The experience is mixed. There are cases when success is achieved fast, and members cooperate in the collaboration. Other cases when participants are reluctant to work together can be problematic and even discouraging.
To what degree do you think overall organizational attitudes toward collaboration influenced this experience?
The organizational attitudes towards collaboration significantly influenced the CNO's experience with delight and excellent team spirit cases. A positive corporate attitude has shown to bring great success to the collaboration initiatives.
