Dear Nurse Colleague:
My first 90 days as chief nursing officer have been a journey of discovery. This journey has taken me to inpatient and ambulatory care areas from the OR through the Tower and CWN, to the ED, dialysis and ambulatory care clinics -- from meetings with nutrition services to the pharmacy, chaplaincy and interpreter services and to groups of nursing leaders including nurse managers, educators, nurses in charge, nurse administrators and clinical directors.
We have discussed patients and our nursing and interdisciplinary work with its strengths and challenges. We have laughed about times gone by and shared our hopes for the future. You have told me of the complexities of our patients’ needs, the importance of an interdisciplinary and coordinated team in managing these complexities and how proud you are to be part of a hospital the caliber of BWH. Throughout this time, I have been on “intake mode,” listening, inquiring and reflecting with you about nursing care, practice and the profession.
What I put before you is the result of what I have heard from you and what I believe to be our shared vision for our work together over the next five years.
As the Nursing Department at BWH, our vision is to provide excellent nursing care to patients and families with the very best staff in the safest environment.
The beauty of this vision lies in its simplicity.
Excellent nursing care to patients and families is about the work of building continuous healing relationships driven by the needs of patients and families. Aligning with this is building healthy working relationships with colleagues within and outside our discipline. How we build these relationships, how we work within these relationships and how we learn about them rests here with current evidence based practices that inform our care.
The very best staff includes competence in technical and relational work and accountability for our practice as individual practitioners and as a professional nursing discipline. As we continuously develop our accountability and the mutually shared responsibility for the ongoing development of our practice, we become life long learners, engaged in both learning and teaching, leading and following. As mentors to those entering the profession, as members and leaders of interdisciplinary and intra-disciplinary teams, we make the central role of nurses in this organization more visible.
Another key element with our best staff is that our diversity will reflect the diversity of our patient population and will be another strength as our cultural competence evolves. We’ve made great strides in the last five years by recruiting and retaining highly skilled minority nurses through efforts like our Diversity Mentorship program – the focus of this month’s BWH Nurse cover story.
The safest environment means that the right resources are with the right patients at the right times. It means that as a community of nurses, no nurse feels left alone in her or his practice and that change can be initiated by nurses at all levels to improve nursing care, nursing practice and work with leaders to promote a fair and just work environment. We recognize collaboration and teamwork are keys to creating and implementing safe systems for care that reduce error.
We are proud of the excellence within BWH and the people and practices we highlight in BWH Nurse. As our vision is refined, it will promote our continued development as a discipline and our contribution to the profession. This is our work over the next five years, and BWH Nurse will help mark our journey.
With more than 2,000 nurses in the BWH nursing community, it will take time for me to meet each one of you. When I am in your area, on your unit, or discussing this vision and its meaning in our day-to-day work, I ask that you please contribute your best thinking.
The practice of nursing is evolving here at BWH and nationally. Let us take our place among those who will lead the way.
Sincerely,
Mairead Hickey, RN, PhD
Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services