Professionalism and Authentic Leadership
Jump to section:
- Certification
- Healthy Work Environment Initiative
- Professional Practice Council (PPC) Retreat
- Professional Development Pathway
- Emerging Nurse Leaders Series
Certification
Colleen Karvonen | MN, RN, CMSRN, CWON
Clinical Nurse Specialist: Wound & Ostomy
Manager, Wound & Ostomy Resource Nurse Program
Manger, Clinical Nurse Specialist Group
Certification is valued and supported at UWMC. One example of this in the Medical/Surgical Certification Review Course offered each year in conjunction with UW SoN CNE. UWMC has 20 fully-funded spots for RNs to take the course free of charge. This course is taught by clinical leaders throughout UW Medicine and beyond, including many Clinical Nurse Specialists at UWMC with whom staff RNs interact every day. RNs can work with their unit leadership to use professional leave hours so this class is within their current FTE. This review course continues to be highly rated and highly valued by participants and managers alike. Additional support comes from UWMC in the form of reimbursement for up to $200 in exam fees. Finally, certified nurses earn an hourly certification premium for every hour they work.
Healthy Work Environment Initiative
In 2020-21, the COVID-19 pandemic turned healthcare and the world as we knew it upside down. UWMC led the way in many innovative staff-support initiatives aimed at improving retention and team member satisfaction during this chaotic time. In 2021, UWMC launched its first system-wide initiative on improving our healthcare work environments using the six Healthy Work Environment (HWE) evidence-based standards from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses as a framework. The standards are Skilled Communication, True Collaboration, Effective Decision-Making, Appropriate Staffing, Meaningful Recognition and Authentic Leadership.
Modeled after a workshop series done by Dennis Doherty, PhD, RN, NPD-BC at Boston Children’s Hospital, the goal of this immersive professional development program is to promote the HWE framework in all practice settings by engaging leaders and local frontline interprofessional champions in identifying a need for and implementing HWE initiatives at a departmental level.
The 2022 series kicked off with three 2-hour workshops for leaders throughout the UWMC/UW Medicine system. More than a hundred leaders attended the virtual sessions, engaging in conversations on how to support our departments as we begin the long climb out of the impacts of the pandemic. The leaders were tasked with identifying HWE department champions who will attend the subsequent 4-workshop series throughout 2022. Leaders, in collaboration with their HWE Champions, will begin work on making small incremental changes that have the potential to make a big impact on their teams in 2022 and beyond. If we can improve the health of our healthcare work environments, we can once again find joy and meaning in our work, and our patients will have better outcomes.
Professional Practice Council (PPC) Retreat
Paulina Neri
6SA Medical & Oncology ICU | UWMC Montlake
PPC Co-Chair | ABCC LPC Co-Chair
After months of the instability of this global pandemic, we were diving into project work for our "Come As You Are" Retreat (10/04/2021 and 11/01/2021). Professional Practice Council (PPC) members were asked to come ready to share, troubleshoot, discover, brainstorm and be a community. We wanted to experience this together wherever we were in the process of project work. Presenters were to be prepared to limit time to a maximum of 5 minutes to allow for time to do group discussion.
Great resources can come from surprising places. At the very least, we wanted to go through the process together to come up with main topics, key questions and potential ideas on how to measure our work. We encouraged participation over perfection and welcomed anything participants had to give.
We started with providing education on methods and project development and suggested reaching out to their CNS for assistance as well.
The work put into this event was profound considering the circumstances at the time. There were over a dozen posters and/or presentations shared, with several moving on to submit abstracts to SNRC. Topics included everything from de-clogging feeding tubes to developing workshop content for shared governance leadership. The project submission template was revived and utilized.
In sharing as a community, we anticipated that groups would find much in common. A few connections were made at the retreat to facilitate collaboration on projects across different LPCs. Our future goal is to continue to support each other's work and replicate it at the Unit Practice Council (UPC) level.
Professional Development Pathway
In 2021, nurses in our Nursing Education Council and Professional Practice Council integrated the Nursing Professional Development Pathway across our two campuses. The Professional Development Pathway was developed for use in annual performance reviews during conversations with nurses as they think about their professional development over the next year. It is a quick and easy place to share all the different opportunities available at UWMC. We also encourage nurses to look at this pathway any time to remind them of opportunities and explore them. It is our sincere belief that continuous learning and growing enhances nurse engagement and satisfaction, and leads to excellence in patient care.
Emerging Nurse Leaders Series
In 2021, UW Medical Center launched a new program called the Emerging Nurse Leaders Series. The program is a key component of our succession planning efforts, and supporting leadership growth. The participants were experienced RN3s and new Nurse Managers, who completed a year long online course through the AACN called Fundamental Skills for Nurse Managers. In addition, they met monthly for 2 hours, and enjoyed expert speakers from around our system on topics like Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Human Resources Management, Project Management, Accreditation Readiness and Budget. The group of 22 leaders supported one another, and learned together. The next cohort of the Emerging Nurse Leader Series will kick off in September of 2022.