The COVID-19 pandemic has touched everyone in some manner over the last 18 months, but those in the healthcare industry have not only been challenged in their personal lives but also in their professional lives in a unique way. Staff who were able to cope well, demonstrating tremendous resilience during 2020 and into early 2021, are not faring as well with the 2021 surge of the variant that is now sweeping across the land.

With 15 years of experience as a national nursing excellence consultant, I have had the opportunity to work with literally hundreds of healthcare leaders from over 200 facilities.  One thing that always stands out is the difference between those who actually ‘walk the talk’ and become role models for processes, professional behaviors, work ethic, attitude, and accountability, and those who don’t.  Successful leaders know that effective delegation is key to handle a broad scope of command by leading through systems.  But

Data. It’s a word often used in healthcare to back-up our findings, justify our next steps, or in some cases lead us to a new conclusion. While we live in a world of big data, we may not intuitively know how to use this effectively to create change. In fact, only 15% of healthcare organizations in a recent Tableau IDC whitepaper are data leading. Data leading organizations are those with strong enterprise-wide data cultures. Yet 83% of CEO’s in the same survey want their organization to be more data driven.

My early nursing career offered me a variety of care areas and work settings. Shortly after graduating with my BSN, I began my nursing career in Labor & Delivery at a hospital in downtown Omaha. While not as notorious as some other inner-city facilities in the country, it was a reality check and an often-stressful setting for a ‘farm-girl’ from rural Nebraska. My eyes were quickly opened by the cases that we saw in this trauma center caring for a diverse population.