When the American Nurses’ Association announced the theme for National Nurses’ Week 2020 as ‘The Year of the Nurse and the Nurse Midwife’ no one could have anticipated how true that tagline would become. As the COVID-19 virus expanded into a pandemic causing millions, of often critically ill, highly contagious patients to descend on hospitals and other healthcare facilities, nurses around the world stepped up as they always do.

If you’ve worked in healthcare for any length of time you’ve probably heard the saying “no margin, no mission.” As a nursing leader, I had to learn terms like EBIDA, productive versus non-productive hours, fixed assets, expense variances, and the intricacies of tax accountability for regular payroll versus bonus hours.

One of the realities of life is that we are constantly giving and receiving feedback. Sometimes feedback is formal, such as annual performance reviews or meetings with supervisors or faculty. Other times it is as casual as a reassuring smile from a colleague or mentor when mastering a new task or comforting another. How we process and apply feedback is influenced by many things. Comments or feedback might take the mind to a similar stressful experience in the past or to a pleasant memory surrounding a success.

Every January, millions of people start the new year with good intentions, if not true resolutions. For the past 16 years, January has marked a different milestone for me – an uptick in organization activities related to the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® and a 10-month countdown to the annual ANCC Magnet Conference. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic prevented me from attending the conference in person for the first time since 2003.

As the surge of the novel coronavirus pandemic reaches a crisis level in many areas of the country, nurse leaders are barely able to address the day to day operations of their facilities and units, let alone think about if, and how, they can round on patients and families during this difficult time. But right now, the value of these rounds goes far beyond our patient satisfaction goals or standardization of processes.